inate! I never heard such ignorance. There ain't no discriminating
about it. When he makes you and some more of his children black, and
makes the rest of us white, what do you call that?"

Jim see the p'int. He was stuck. He couldn't answer. Tom says:

"He does discriminate, you see, when he wants to; but this case HERE
ain't no discrimination of his, it's man's. The Lord made the day,
and he made the night; but he didn't invent the hours, and he didn't
distribute them around. Man did that."

"Mars Tom, is dat so? Man done it?"

"Certainly."

"Who tole him he could?"

"Nobody. He never asked."

Jim studied a minute, and says:

"Well, dat do beat me. I wouldn't 'a' tuck no sich resk. But some people
ain't scared o' nothin'. Dey bangs right ahead; DEY don't care what
happens. So den dey's allays an hour's diff'unce everywhah, Mars Tom?"

"An hour? No! It's four minutes difference for every degree of
longitude, you know. Fifteen of 'em's an hour, thirty of 'em's two
hours, and so on. When it's one clock Tuesday morning in England, it's
eight o'clock the night before in New York."

Jim moved a little way along the locker, and you could see he was
insulted. He kept shaking his head and muttering, and so I slid along to
him and patted him on the leg, and petted him up, and got him over the
worst of his feelings, and then he says:

"Mars Tom talkin' sich talk as dat! Choosday in one place en Monday in
t'other, bofe in the same day! Huck, dis ain't no place to joke--up here
whah we is. Two days in one day! How you gwine to get two days inter one
day? Can't git two hours inter one hour, kin you? Can't git two niggers
inter one nigger skin, kin you? Can't git two gallons of whisky inter
a one-gallon jug, kin you? No, sir, 'twould strain de jug. Yes, en even
den you couldn't, I don't believe. Why, looky here, Huck, s'posen de
Choosday was New Year's--now den! is you gwine to tell me it's dis year
in one place en las' year in t'other, bofe in de identical same minute?
It's de beatenest rubbage! I can't stan' it--I can't stan' to hear tell
'bout it." Then he begun to shiver and turn gray, and Tom says:

"NOW what's the matter? What's the trouble?"

Jim could hardly speak, but he says:

"Mars Tom, you ain't jokin', en it's SO?"

"No, I'm not, and it is so."

Jim shivered again, and says:

"Den dat Monday could be de las' day, en dey wouldn't be no las' day
in England, en de dead wouldn't be called. We mustn't go