Later, when Tom sees Becky at school, he performs all sorts of antics to attract her attention, but she ignores him.

Analysis

This chapter acts as an interlude between the Injun Joe murder plot and the future plot involving the boys on Jackson’s Island.

With the episode about the painkillers, Twain returns to telling wonderful anecdotes. Regardless of what the pain might be, all nineteenth-century quack medicines (or patent medicines, for that matter) had one quality in common: They were about 90 percent pure alcohol. Although these medicines had no therapeutic or medicinal values, they at least made the patient feel less pain. In the case of Tom and the cat, the medicine made them feel elated, joyous, and rambunctious. Of course, they were drunk.

Glossary

inveterate to be addicted to or to become a habit.

balm of Gilead anything healing or soothing.