When we got up, we looked through the things the gang had stolen from the wreck. There were boots, blankets, clothes, a lot of books and three boxes of cigars. We had never been so rich in our lives. We lay in the woods all afternoon, talking and smoking, and I read the books.
I told Jim everything that happened on the wreck and at the ferry, and I said these things were adventures. But Jim said he didn’t want any more adventures. When he found the raft gone, he nearly died. If nobody saved him, he would drown. And if somebody did save him, they would send him home for the reward, and then Miss Watson would sell him down the river for sure. Well, he was right. He was nearly always right. He had a lot of good sense.
I read to Jim about kings and dukes and how fine their clothes were, and how people called them “Your Majesty” instead of “Mister”. Jim’s eyes got very big.
“How much does a king get, Huck?”
“Why, a thousand dollars a month if he wants it. Everything belongs to him. And they don’t do anything; they just sit around. And they have lots of wives. Solomon had about a million wives.”
“Yes, that’s right, I forgot about that. But people say Solomon was the wisest man who ever lived. I don’t believe that. Would a wise man want to live with all that noise all the time?”
“Well, he was the wisest man anyway. The widow told me so herself.”
“I don’t care what the widow says. Do you know about that child he was going to cut in two? Look here. That tree stump is one woman, and you’re the other woman. I’m Solomon, and this dollar bill is the child. You both say it’s yours. What do I do? Do I ask the neighbors and find out whose it is, like anybody with good sense would? No, I cut the bill in two and give half to you and half to the other woman. What can you buy with half a bill? And what good is half a child?”
“But Jim, you’ve missed the point, by a thousand miles.”
“Don’t talk to me about points. I know sense when I see it. And the real point is how many children Solomon had. Take a man with one or two children. Is that man going to waste a child? No, he can’t. He knows how to value them. But take a man with about five million children running around the house. He would cut a child in two as easily as he would a cat. There are plenty more.”
When Jim got an idea in his head, you could never get it out again. So I started talking about other kings. I told him about Louis the Sixteenth, who got his head cut off in France long ago, and about his little boy, who should have been king. Some people say he got away and came to America.
“That’s good! But there aren’t any kings here, are there, Huck? What will he do?”
“Well, I don’t know. Some of them teach people to speak French.”
“Why, Huck, don’t the French people talk the same way we do?”
“No, Jim. You couldn’t understand a single word they said.”
“Well, I never! How can that be?”
“I don’t know, but it’s true. Look here, Jim. Does a cat talk like we do?”
“No, a cat doesn’t.”
“Well, does a cow?”
“No, a cow doesn’t either.”
“It’s natural and right for a cat and a cow to talk differently from us, isn’t it?”
“Why, sure it is.”
“Well, then, why isn’t it natural and right for a Frenchman to talk differently from us? You answer me that.”
“Is a cat a man, Huck?”
“No.”
“Well, then, there’s no sense in a cat talking like a man. Is a cow a man? Or is a cow a cat?”
“No, she isn’t either one.”
“Well, then, she has no business talking like either of them. Is a Frenchman a man?”
“Yes.”
“Well, then! Why doesn’t he talk like a man? You answer me that!”
I saw it was no use wasting words. You can’t teach Jim to argue. So I stopped.