Chapter 14

CHAPTER XIV.

BY and by, when we got up, we turned over the
truck the gang had stole off of the wreck, and
found boots, and blankets, and clothes, and all sorts of
other things, and a lot of books, and a spyglass, and
three boxes of seegars. We hadn't ever been this rich
before in neither of our lives. The seegars was prime.
We laid off all the afternoon in the woods talking, and
me reading the books, and having a general good time.
I told Jim all about what happened inside the wreck
and at the ferryboat, and I said these kinds of things
was adventures; but he said he didn't want no more
adventures. He said that when I went in the texas
and he crawled back to get on the raft and found her
gone he nearly died, because he judged it was all up
with HIM anyway it could be fixed; for if he didn't get
saved he would get drownded; and if he did get
saved, whoever saved him would send him back home
so as to get the reward, and then Miss Watson would
sell him South, sure. Well, he was right; he was
most always right; he had an uncommon level head
for a nigger.

I read considerable to Jim about kings and dukes
and earls and such, and how gaudy they dressed, and
how much style they put on, and called each other
your majesty, and your grace, and your lordship, and
so on, 'stead of mister; and Jim's eyes bugged out,
and he was interested. He says:

"I didn' know dey was so many un um. I hain't
hearn 'bout none un um, skasely, but ole King Soller-
mun, onless you counts dem kings dat's in a pack er
k'yards. How much do a king git?"

"Get?" I says; "why, they get a thousand dollars
a month if they want it; they can have just as much
as they want; everything belongs to them."

"AIN' dat gay? En what dey got to do, Huck?"

"THEY don't do nothing! Why, how you talk!
They just set around."

"No; is dat so?"

"Of course it is. They just set around -- except,
maybe, when there's a war; then they go to the war.
But other times they just lazy around; or go hawking
-- just hawking and sp -- Sh! -- d' you hear a noise?"

We skipped out and looked; but it warn't nothing
but the flutter of a steamboat's wheel away down,
coming around the point; so we come back.

"Yes," says I, "and other times, when things is
dull, they fuss with the parlyment; and if everybody
don't go just so he whacks their heads off. But
mostly they hang round the harem."

"Roun' de which?"

"Harem."

"What's de harem?"

"The place where he keeps his wives. Don't you
know about the harem? Solomon had one; he had
about a million wives."

"Why, yes, dat's so; I -- I'd done forgot it. A
harem's a bo'd'n-house,