, 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 than five thousand
miles an hour. Where's your man NOW?--yes, and your bird, and your
railroad, and your balloon? Laws, they don't amount to shucks 'longside
of a flea. A flea is just a comet b'iled down small."

Jim was a good deal astonished, and so was I. Jim said:

"Is dem figgers jist edjackly true, en no jokin' en no lies, Mars Tom?"

"Yes, they are; they're perfectly true."

"Well, den, honey, a body's got to respec' a flea. I ain't had no respec'
for um befo', sca'sely, but dey ain't no gittin' roun' it, dey do deserve
it, dat's certain."

"Well, I bet they do. They've got ever so much more sense, and brains,
and brightness, in proportion to their size, than any other cretur in the
world. A person can learn them 'most anything; and they learn it quicker
than any other cretur, too. They've been learnt to haul little carriages
in harness, and go this way and that way and t'other way according to
their orders; yes, and to march and drill like soldiers, doing it as
exact, according to orders, as soldiers does it. They've been learnt to
do all sorts of hard and troublesome things. S'pose you could cultivate a
flea up to the size of a man, and keep his natural smartness a-growing
and a-growing right along up, bi