ds of birds--a wild pigeon, maybe, or
a railroad.

But Tom said he had read about railroads in England going nearly a
hundred miles an hour for a little ways, and there never was a bird in
the world that could do that--except one, and that was a flea.

"A flea? Why, Mars Tom, in de fust place he ain't a bird, strickly
speakin'--"

"He ain't a bird, eh? Well, then, what is he?"

"I don't rightly know, Mars Tom, but I speck he's only jist a' animal.
No, I reckon dat won't do, nuther, he ain't big enough for a' animal. He
mus' be a bug. Yassir, dat's what he is, he's a bug."

"I bet he ain't, but let it go. What's your second place?"

"Well, in de second place, birds is creturs dat goes a long ways, but a
flea don't."

"He don't, don't he? Come, now, what IS a long distance, if you know?"

"Why, it's miles, and lots of 'em--anybody knows dat."

"Can't a man walk miles?"

"Yassir, he kin."

"As many as a railroad?"

"Yassir, if you give him time."

"Can't a flea?"

"Well--I s'pose so--ef you gives him heaps of time."

"Now you begin to see, don't you, that DISTANCE ain't the thing to judge
by, at all; it's the time it takes to go the distance IN that COUNTS,
ain't it?"

"Well, hit do look sorter so, but I wouldn't 'a' b'lieved it, Mars Tom."

"It's a matter of PROPORTION, that's what it is; and when you come to
gauge a thing's speed by its size, where's your bird and your man and
your railroad, alongside of a flea? The fastest man can't run more than
about ten miles in an hour--not much over ten thousand times his own
length. But all the books says any common ordinary third-class flea can
jump a hundred and fifty times his own length; yes, and he can make five
jumps a second too--seven hundred and fifty times his own length, in one
little second--for he don't fool away any time stopping and starting--he
does them both at the same time; you'll see, if you try to put your
finger on him. Now that's a common, ordinary, third-class flea's gait;
but you take an Eyetalian FIRST-class, that's been the pet of the
nobility all his life, and hasn't ever knowed what want or sickness
or exposure was, and he can jump more than three hundred times his own
length, and keep it up all day, five such jumps every second, which
is fifteen hundred times his own length. Well, suppose a man could go
fifteen hundred times his own length in a second--say, a mile and a
half. It's ninety miles a minute; it's considerable more tha