down between his
knees, asleep, with his right arm hanging over the steering-oar. The
other oar was smashed off, and the raft was littered up with leaves
and branches and dirt. So she'd had a rough time.

I made fast and laid down under Jim's nose on the raft, and began to
gap, and stretch my fists out against Jim, and says:

"Hello, Jim, have I been asleep? Why didn't you stir me up?"

"Goodness gracious, is dat you, Huck? En you ain' dead--you ain'
drownded--you's back ag'in? It's too good for true, honey, it's too
good for true. Lemme look at you chile, lemme feel o' you. No, you
ain' dead! you's back ag'in, 'live en soun', jis de same ole Huck--de
same ole Huck, thanks to goodness!"

"What's the matter with you, Jim? You been a-drinking?"

"Drinkin'? Has I ben a-drinkin'? Has I had a chance to be a-drinkin'?"

"Well, then, what makes you talk so wild?"

"How does I talk wild?"

"_How?_ Why, hain't you been talking about my coming back, and all
that stuff, as if I'd been gone away?"

"Huck--Huck Finn, you look me in de eye; look me in de eye. _Hain't_
you ben gone away?"

"Gone away? Why, what in the nation do you mean? _I_ hain't been gone
anywheres. Where would I go to?"

"Well, looky here, boss, dey's sumfn wrong, dey is. Is I _me_, or who
_is_ I? Is I heah, or whah _is_ I? Now dat's what I wants to know."

"Well, I think you're here, plain enough, but I think you're a
tangle-headed old fool, Jim."

"I is, is I? Well, you answer me dis: Didn't you tote out de line in
de canoe fer to make fas' to de towhead?"

"No, I didn't. What towhead? I hain't seen no towhead."

"You hain't seen no towhead? Looky here, didn't de line pull loose en
de raf' go a-hummin' down de river, en leave you en de canoe behine in
de fog?"

"What fog?"

"Why, _de_ fog!--de fog dat's been aroun' all night. En didn't you
whoop, en didn't I whoop, tell we got mix' up in de islands en one un
us got los' en t'other one was jis' as good as los', 'kase he didn'
know whah he wuz? En didn't I bust up agin a lot er dem islands en
have a turrible time en mos' git drownded? Now ain' dat so,
boss--ain't it so? You answer me dat."

"Well, this is too many for me, Jim. I hain't seen no fog, nor no
islands, nor no troubles, nor nothing. I been setting here talking
with you all night till you went to sleep about ten minutes ago, and I
reckon I done the same. You couldn't 'a' got drunk in that time, so of
course you've been dreaming."