Camy: The D & K are indeed annoying, and I agree they overstay their welcome--especially that last Nonesuch business. If you're not going to TELL us what was so funny about it, because it's too dirty, why put it in? ) I suspect Twain intended them to be annoying--as foils for human nature--ways to show up our gullibility and other failings --and of course they make for an easy bank shot against actual royalty when Jim says something like "all kings is mostly rapscallions as far as Ican tell." And as fake aristocrats they are a farcical balance to the real aristocrat: Colonel Grangerford, who is not made fun of (much), but treated with respect by Huck (who can "feel" his kindliness and seems drawn to him as a father figure)--but whose chivalric code and its tragic consequences must be condemned ...seriously, without farce. (It's no accident, in my view, that Buck and Huck are alike in more ways than the letters of their names: Buck is really an alternate Huck!) Also if you'll allow me a "stretcher" ...maybe the D & K sort of complete the microcosm of the raft: black, white, young, old, boy trickster, adult con-artist... No females, but...well it was Victorian times. Sorry for all that. There's ten minutes of your life you'll never get back! Dan