Quote 16
"My! I never once thought of it, Huck!"
"Well, I didn't neither, but all at once it popped onto me that it was Friday."
"Blame it, a body can't be too careful, Huck. We might 'a' got into an awful scrape, tackling such a thing on a Friday."
"Might! Better say we would! There's some lucky days, maybe, but Friday ain't." (26.4-7)
Here again, superstition gives Huck and Tom the opportunity to delay what is, no doubt, a scary endeavor – they go off and pretend to be Robin Hood instead.
Quote 17
"It [Injun Joe's ghost] would hang round the money. I know the ways of ghosts, and so do you."
Tom began to fear that Huck was right. Misgivings gathered in his mind. But presently an idea occurred to him –
"Lookyhere, Huck, what fools we're making of ourselves! Injun Joe's ghost ain't a going to come around where there's a cross!"
The point was well taken. It had its effect. (33.58-61)
In order to bolster Huck's confidence, Tom trumps one with another. Though they do believe in the craziest things, their system has some order to it.
Quote 18
"Hold! Who comes here into Sherwood Forest without my pass?"
"Guy of Guisborne wants no man's pass. Who art thou that -- that --"
"Dares to hold such language," said Tom, prompting -- for they talked "by the book," from memory. (8.17-19)
Here we see that Tom and Joe Harper are actually able to change their manner of speaking to suit their role-playing; they, like Twain, understand what a difference "voice" can make. (It should also be noticed that Tom has no trouble remembering lines from Robin Hood, but he can't even memorize the smallest bit of the Sermon on the Mount for Sunday school.)