hat good can it do you to throw cold water on
that corpse and get up that selfish theory that there ain't been any
murder? None in the world. I don't see how you can act so. I wouldn't
treat you like that, and you know it. Here we've got a noble good
opportunity to make a ruputation, and--"

"Oh, go ahead," I says. "I'm sorry, and I take it all back. I didn't
mean nothing. Fix it any way you want it. HE ain't any consequence to
me. If he's killed, I'm as glad of it as you are; and if he--"

"I never said anything about being glad; I only--"

"Well, then, I'm as SORRY as you are. Any way you druther have it, that
is the way I druther have it. He--"

"There ain't any druthers ABOUT it, Huck Finn; nobody said anything
about druthers. And as for--"

He forgot he was talking, and went tramping along, studying. He begun to
get excited again, and pretty soon he says:

"Huck, it'll be the bulliest thing that ever happened if we find the
body after everybody else has quit looking, and then go ahead and hunt
up the murderer. It won't only be an honor to us, but it'll be an honor
to Uncle Silas because it was us that done it. It'll set him up again,
you see if it don't."

But Old Jeff Hooker he throwed cold water on the whole business when we
got to his blacksmith shop and told him what we come for.

"You can take the dog," he says, "but you ain't a-going to find any
corpse, because there ain't any corpse to find. Everybody's quit
looking, and they're right. Soon as they come to think, they knowed
there warn't no corpse. And I'll tell you for why. What does a person
kill another person for, Tom Sawyer?--answer me that."

"Why, he--er--"

"Answer up! You ain't no fool. What does he kill him FOR?"

"Well, sometimes it's for revenge, and--"

"Wait. One thing at a time. Revenge, says you; and right you are. Now
who ever had anything agin that poor trifling no-account? Who do you
reckon would want to kill HIM?--that rabbit!"

Tom was stuck. I reckon he hadn't thought of a person having to have
a REASON for killing a person before, and now he sees it warn't likely
anybody would have that much of a grudge against a lamb like Jubiter
Dunlap. The blacksmith says, by and by:

"The revenge idea won't work, you see. Well, then, what's next? Robbery?
B'gosh, that must 'a' been it, Tom! Yes, sirree, I reckon we've struck
it this time. Some feller wanted his gallus-buckles, and so he--"

But it was so funny he busted out laughi