Huck calls him a "well-brought up" boy, and we see that he is also well read, imaginative, and incurably mischievous. At the beginning of the story, Huck and Tom play together, Huck expressing a desire to be more like Tom. Tom is not physically present for most of the tale, but Huck refers to him frequently, wishing he could make up as good a story as Tom could, or come up with a better plan. Both boys have a thirst for adventure but I have to say in "Huck Finn" the two diverge.
Tom is gone for much of the novel while Huck developed into his own person. Tom comes back onto the scene at the end of the novel. Supposedly, he’s the "well-brought up" kid with good principles and a solid conscience, but he allows Jim to suffer as a prisoner without disclosing that the man is free. Sure, he "compensates" him at the end, but the fact that he uses Jim as a toy is a reinforcement of the idea of Jim as property and somehow sub-human. Notice also that Huck is appalled at a "well-brought up" boy’s willingness to steal a slave, an act he obviously still considers despicable. It looks like some lessons haven’t quite been learned throughout the course of the novel Both boys still have a boyish quality about them but Huck has a more sophisticated moral code.
