sword fight--the duke called himself Richard III.; and the way they laid on and pranced around the raft was grand to see.  But by and by the king tripped and fell overboard, and after that they took a rest, and had a talk about all kinds of adventures they'd had in other times along the river. After dinner the duke says: “Well, Capet, we'll want to make this a first-class show, you know, so I guess we'll add a little more to it.  We want a little something to answer encores with, anyway.” “What's onkores, Bilgewater?” The duke told him, and then says: “I'll answer by doing the Highland fling or the sailor's hornpipe; and you--well, let me see--oh, I've got it--you can do Hamlet's soliloquy.” “Hamlet's which?” “Hamlet's soliloquy, you know; the most celebrated thing in Shakespeare. Ah, it's sublime, sublime!  Always fetches the house.  I haven't got it in the book--I've only got one volume--but I reckon I can piece it out from memory.  I'll just walk up and down a minute, and see if I can call it back from recollection's vaults.” So he went to marching up and down, thinking, and frowning horrible every now and then; then he would hoist up his eyebrows; next he would squeeze his hand on his forehead and stagger back and kind of moan; next he would sigh, and next he'd let on to drop a tear.  It was beautiful to see him. By and by he got it.  He told us to give attention.  Then he strikes a most noble attitude, with one leg shoved forwards, and his arms stretched away up, and his head tilted back, looking up at the sky; and then he begins to rip and rave and grit his teeth; and after that, all through his speech, he howled, and spread around, and swelled up his chest, and just knocked the spots out of any acting ever I see before.  This is the speech--I learned it, easy enough, while he was learning it to the king: To be, or not to be; that is the bare bodkin That makes calamity of so long life; For who would fardels bear, till Birnam Wood do come to Dunsinane