hrough the air?"

"Yes."

"Very well. Don't we fly high or fly low, just as we please?"

"Yes."

"Don't we steer whichever way we want to?"

"Yes."

"And don't we land when and where we please?"

"Yes."

"How do we move the balloon and steer it?"

"By touching the buttons."

"NOW I reckon the thing is clear to you at last. In the other case the
moving and steering was done by turning a peg. We touch a button, the
prince turned a peg. There ain't an atom of difference, you see. I
knowed I could git it through your head if I stuck to it long enough."

He felt so happy he begun to whistle. But me and Jim was silent, so he
broke off surprised, and says:

"Looky here, Huck Finn, don't you see it YET?"

I says:

"Tom Sawyer, I want to ask you some questions."

"Go ahead," he says, and I see Jim chirk up to listen.

"As I understand it, the whole thing is in the buttons and the peg--the
rest ain't of no consequence. A button is one shape, a peg is another
shape, but that ain't any matter?"

"No, that ain't any matter, as long as they've both got the same power."

"All right, then. What is the power that's in a candle and in a match?"

"It's the fire."

"It's the same in both, then?"

"Yes, just the same in both."

"All right. Suppose I set fire to a carpenter shop with a match, what
will happen to that carpenter shop?"

"She'll burn up."

"And suppose I set fire to this pyramid with a candle--will she burn
up?"

"Of course she won't."

"All right. Now the fire's the same, both times. WHY does the shop burn,
and the pyramid don't?"

"Because the pyramid CAN'T burn."

"Aha! and A HORSE CAN'T FLY!"

"My lan', ef Huck ain't got him ag'in! Huck's landed him high en dry
dis time, I tell you! Hit's de smartes' trap I ever see a body walk
inter--en ef I--"

But Jim was so full of laugh he got to strangling and couldn't go on,
and Tom was that mad to see how neat I had floored him, and turned his
own argument ag'in him and knocked him all to rags and flinders with it,
that all he could manage to say was that whenever he heard me and
Jim try to argue it made him ashamed of the human race. I never said
nothing; I was feeling pretty well satisfied. When I have got the best
of a person that way, it ain't my way to go around crowing about it
the way some people does, for I consider that if I was in his place I
wouldn't wish him to crow over me. It's better to be generous, that's
what I think.