way we does?"

"NO, Jim; you couldn't understand a word they said--not a single word."

"Well, now, I be ding-busted! How do dat come?"

"I don't know; but it's so. I got some of their jabber out of a book.
S'pose a man was to come to you and say Polly-voo-franzy--what would you
think?"

"I wouldn' think nuff'n; I'd take en bust him over de head--dat is, if he
warn't white. I wouldn't 'low no nigger to call me dat."

"Shucks, 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 Frenchman's WAY of saying it."

"Well, it's a blame ridicklous way, en I doan' want to hear no mo' 'bout
it. Dey ain' no sense in it."

"Looky here, Jim; does a cat talk like we do?"

"No, a cat don't."

"Well, does a cow?"

"No, a cow don't, nuther."

"Does a cat talk like a cow, or a cow talk like a cat?"

"No, dey don't."

"It's natural and right for 'em to talk different from each other, ain't
it?"

"Course."

"And ain't it natural and right for a cat and a cow to talk different
from US?"

"Why, mos' sholy it is."

"Well, then, why ain't it natural and right for a FRENCHMAN to talk
different from us? You answer me that."

"Is a cat a man, Huck?"

"No."

"Well, den, dey ain't no sense in a cat talkin' like a man. Is a cow a
man?--er 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 er the
yuther of 'em. Is a Frenchman a man?"

"Yes."

"WELL, den! Dad blame it, why doan' he TALK like a man? You answer me
DAT!"

I see it warn't no use wasting words--you can't learn a nigger to argue.
So I quit.

CHAPTER XV.

WE judged that three nights more would fetch us to Cairo, at the bottom
of Illinois, where the Ohio River comes in, and that was what we was
after. We would sell the raft and get on a steamboat and go way up the
Ohio amongst the free States, and then be out of trouble.

Well, the second night a fog begun to come on, and we made for a towhead
to tie to, for it wouldn't do to try to run in a fog; but when I paddled
ahead in the canoe, with the line to make fast, there warn't anything but
little saplings to tie to. I passed the line around one of them right on
the edge of the cut bank, but there was a stiff current, and the raft
come booming down so lively she tore it out by the roots and away she
went. I see the fog cl