ain
in a better world; and Tom kept still and didn't tell him they was only
Mohammedans; it warn't no use to disappoint him, he was feeling bad
enough just as it was.

When we woke up next morning we was feeling a little cheerfuller, and
had had a most powerful good sleep, because sand is the comfortablest
bed there is, and I don't see why people that can afford it don't have
it more. And it's terrible good ballast, too; I never see the balloon so
steady before.

Tom allowed we had twenty tons of it, and wondered what we better do
with it; it was good sand, and it didn't seem good sense to throw it
away. Jim says:

"Mars Tom, can't we tote it back home en sell it? How long'll it take?"

"Depends on the way we go."

"Well, sah, she's wuth a quarter of a dollar a load at home, en I reckon
we's got as much as twenty loads, hain't we? How much would dat be?"

"Five dollars."

"By jings, Mars Tom, le's shove for home right on de spot! Hit's more'n
a dollar en a half apiece, hain't it?"

"Yes."

"Well, ef dat ain't makin' money de easiest ever I struck! She jes'
rained in--never cos' us a lick o' work. Le's mosey right along, Mars
Tom."

But Tom was thinking and ciphering away so busy and excited he never
heard him. Pretty soon he says:

"Five dollars--sho! Look here, this sand's worth--worth--why, it's worth
no end of money."

"How is dat, Mars Tom? Go on, honey, go on!"

"Well, the minute people knows it's genuwyne sand from the genuwyne
Desert of Sahara, they'll just be in a perfect state of mind to git hold
of some of it to keep on the what-not in a vial with a label on it for
a curiosity. All we got to do is to put it up in vials and float around
all over the United States and peddle them out at ten cents apiece.
We've got all of ten thousand dollars' worth of sand in this boat."

Me and Jim went all to pieces with joy, and begun to shout
whoopjamboreehoo, and Tom says:

"And we can keep on coming back and fetching sand, and coming back and
fetching more sand, and just keep it a-going till we've carted this
whole Desert over there and sold it out; and there ain't ever going to
be any opposition, either, because we'll take out a patent."

"My goodness," I says, "we'll be as rich as Creosote, won't we, Tom?"

"Yes--Creesus, you mean. Why, that dervish was hunting in that little
hill for the treasures of the earth, and didn't know he was walking
over the real ones for a thousand miles. He was blinder