you talk to me like that for, Huck Finn?
You wait till I say a thing's got sense in it before you go to accusing
me of saying it."

"All right, consider me crying about it, and sorry. Go on."

Jim says:

"Mars Tom, do dey jam dat duty onto everything we can't raise in
America, en don't make no 'stinction 'twix' anything?"

"Yes, that's what they do."

"Mars Tom, ain't de blessin' o' de Lord de mos' valuable thing dey is?"

"Yes, it is."

"Don't de preacher stan' up in de pulpit en call it down on de people?"

"Yes."

"Whah do it come from?"

"From heaven."

"Yassir! you's jes' right, 'deed you is, honey--it come from heaven, en
dat's a foreign country. NOW, den! do dey put a tax on dat blessin'?"

"No, they don't."

"Course dey don't; en so it stan' to reason dat you's mistaken, Mars
Tom. Dey wouldn't put de tax on po' truck like san', dat everybody ain't
'bleeged to have, en leave it off'n de bes' thing dey is, which nobody
can't git along widout."

Tom Sawyer was stumped; he see Jim had got him where he couldn't budge.
He tried to wiggle out by saying they had FORGOT to put on that tax, but
they'd be sure to remember about it, next session of Congress, and then
they'd put it on, but that was a poor lame come-off, and he knowed it.
He said there warn't nothing foreign that warn't taxed but just that
one, and so they couldn't be consistent without taxing it, and to be
consistent was the first law of politics. So he stuck to it that they'd
left it out unintentional and would be certain to do their best to fix
it before they got caught and laughed at.

But I didn't feel no more interest in such things, as long as we
couldn't git our sand through, and it made me low-spirited, and Jim the
same. Tom he tried to cheer us up by saying he would think up another
speculation for us that would be just as good as this one and better,
but it didn't do no good, we didn't believe there was any as big as
this. It was mighty hard; such a little while ago we was so rich, and
could 'a' bought a country and started a kingdom and been celebrated and
happy, and now we was so poor and ornery again, and had our sand left
on our hands. The sand was looking so lovely before, just like gold and
di'monds, and the feel of it was so soft and so silky and nice, but now
I couldn't bear the sight of it, it made me sick to look at it, and I
knowed I wouldn't ever feel comfortable again till we got shut of it,
and I didn't have it the