By and by, when we got up, we turned over the things the gang had robbed off of the ship, and found shoes, and blankets, and clothes, and a lot of books, and a telescope, and three boxes of cigars. We hadn’t ever been this rich before in either of our lives. The cigars was the best you can find anywhere. We rested up all the afternoon in the trees talking, and me reading the books, and having a general good time.
I told Jim all about what happened inside the broken ship and at the ferry boat, and I said these kind of things was adventures; but he said he didn’t want no more adventures. He said that when I went in the steering house and he went back to get on the raft and found her gone he nearly died, because he judged it was all up with him any way that it could be fixed; for if he didn’t get saved he would drown; and if he did get saved, whoever saved him would send him back home so as to get the reward, and then Miss Watson would sell him South, for sure. Well, he was right; he was most always right; he was smarter than most Blacks.
I read a lot to Jim about kings and important people in England like dukes and such, and how pretty they dressed, and how much show they put on, and called each other lords instead of Mr., and Jim’s eyes opened big to show he was interested.
He says: "I didn’t know dey was so many of dem. I ain’t heard about none of dem, but old King Solomon, without you counts dem kings dat’s in a box of cards. How much do a king get?"
"Get?" I says. "Why, they get a thousand dollars a month if they want it; they can have just as much as they want; every- thing belongs to them."
"Ain’t that nice? And what dey got to do, Huck?"
"They don’t do nothing! Why, how you talk! They just sit around."
"No; is dat so?"
"For sure it is. They just sit around -- apart from, maybe, when there’s a war; then they go to the war. But other times they just lay around lazy; or go hunting -- just hunting and -- Shhh! -- do you hear a noise?"
We come out from behind the trees and looked; but it weren’t nothing but the sound of a river boat’s wheel turning, coming from away down around the point; so we come back.
"Yes," says I, "and other times, when things is boring, they argue with the government; and if everybody don’t do just so, he cuts their heads off. But mostly they hang around the harem."
"Round de which?"
"Harem."
"What’s de harem?"
"The place where he keeps his wives. Don’t you know about the harem? Solomon had one; he had about a million wives."
"Why, yes, dat’s so; I -- I remember it now. Most likely dey has some loud times in de room where dey keeps de babies.
"And I believe de wives fights a lot; and dat makes de noise worse. Yet dey say Solomon de wisest man dat ever lived. I don’t put no trust in dat, because why would a wise man want to live in de middle of such boom-banging all de time? A wise man would take and build a metal yard; and den he could shut down de metal yard when he want to rest from de noise."
"Well, but he was the wisest man, anyway; because the widow she told me so, herself."
"I don’t care what de widow say, he weren’t no wise man either. He had some of de craziest ways I ever see. Does you know about dat child dat he was gwyne to cut in two?"
"Yes, the widow told me all about it."
"Well den! Weren’t dat de stupidest thing in de world? You just take and look at it a minute. Dere’s de tree, dere -- dat’s one of de women; here’s you -- dat’s de other one; I’s Solomon; and dis here dollar’s de child.
"Both of you wants it. What does I do? Does I ask around de neighbours and find out which of you de dollar do belong to, and hand it over to de right one, all safe and sound, de way dat anyone dat had any brains would? No; I take and axe de dollar in two, and give half of it to you, and de other half to de other woman. Dat’s de way Solomon was gwyne to do wid de child. Now I want to ask you: what’s de use of dat half a dollar? -- can’t buy nothing wid it. And what use is a half a child? I wouldn’t give a turn for a million of them."
"But hang it, Jim, you’ve clean missed the point -- shoot, you’ve missed it a thousand miles."
"Who? Me? Go along. Don’t talk to me about your points. I think I knows wise when I sees it; and dey ain’t no being wise in such doings as dat. De argument weren’t about a half a child, de argument was about a whole child; and de man dat think he can fix an argument about a whole child wid a half a child don’t know enough to come in out de rain. Don’t talk to me about Solomon, Huck, I knows him by de back."
"But I tell you you don’t get the point."
"Kill de point! Way I see it, I knows what I knows. And hear dis, de real point is down deeper. It lays in de way Solomon was brought up. You take a man dat’s got only one or two children; is dat man gwyne to be wasting children? No, he ain’t; he can’t. He knows de worth of dem. But you take a man dat’s got about five million children running around de house, and it’s different. He as soon cut a child in two as a cat. Dey’s a lot more. A child or two, more or less, weren’t no big worry to Solomon, God help him!"
I never seen such a man. If he got a thought in his head once, there weren’t no getting it out again. He was the most down on Solomon of any slave I ever seen. So I went to talking about other kings, and let Solomon rest. I told about Louis the Sixteenth that got his head cut off in France a long time ago; and about his little boy, that would a been a king, but they took and shut him up in prison, and some say he died there.
"Poor little boy."
"But some says he got out and got away, and come to America."
"Dat’s good! But he’ll be pretty sad -- dey ain’t no kings here, is dey, Huck?"
"No."
"Den he can’t get no job as a king. What's he gwyne to do?"
"Well, I don’t know. Some of them gets on the police, and some of them learns people how to talk French."
"Why, Huck, don’t de French people talk de same way we does?"
"No, Jim; you couldn’t understand a word they said – not one word."
"Well, now, I be hit on de head! How do dat come?"
"I don’t know; but it’s so. I got some of their talk out of a book. What if a man was to come to you and say Polly-voo-franzy -- what would you think?"
"I wouldn’t think nothing; I’d take and hit him over de head -- dat is, if he weren’t white. I wouldn’t let no nigger call me dat."
"Shoot! It ain’t calling you anything. It’s only saying, do you know how to talk French?"
"Well, den, why couldn’t he say it?"
"Why, he is a-saying it. That’s a French man’s way of saying it."
"Well, it’s a fully stupid way, and I don’t want to hear no more about it. Dey ain’t no thinking in it."
"Look here, Jim; does a cat talk like we do?"
"No, a cat don’t."
"Well, does a cow?"
"No, a cow don’t, either."
"Does a cat talk like a cow, or a cow talk like a cat?"
"No, dey don’t."
"It’s good and right for them to talk different from each other, ain’t it?"
"True."
"And ain’t it good and right for a cat and a cow to talk different from us?"
"Why, most surely it is."
"Well, then, why ain’t it good and right for a French man to talk different from us? You answer me that."
"Is a cat a man, Huck?"
"No."
"Well, den, dey ain’t no good in a cat talking like a man. Is a cow a man? -- or is a cow a cat?"
"No, she ain’t either of them."
"Well, den, she ain’t got no business to talk like either one or the other of them. Is a French man a man?"
"Yes."
"Well, den! Dad blame it, why don’t he talk like a man? You answer me dat!"
I see it weren’t no use wasting words -- you can’t learn a black man to argue. So I quit.