y 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 closing down, and it made
me so sick and scared I couldn't budge for most a half a minute it
seemed to me--and then there warn't no raft in sight; you couldn't see
twenty yards. I jumped into the canoe and run back to the stern, and
grabbed the paddle and set her back a stroke. But she didn't come. I
was in such a hurry I hadn't untied her. I got up and tried to untie
her, but I was so excited my hands shook so I couldn't hardly do
anything with them.

As soon as I got started I took out after the raft, hot and heavy,
right down the towhead. That was all right as far as it went, but the
towhead warn't sixty yards long, and the minute I flew by the foot of
it I shot out into the solid white fog, and hadn't no more idea which
way I w