"_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 sumf'n 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 tow-head?"

"No, I didn't.  What tow-head?  I hain't see no tow-head."

"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."

"Dad fetch it, how is I gwyne to dream all dat in ten minutes?"

"Well, hang it all, you did dream it, because there didn't any of it happen."

"But, Huck, it's all jis' as plain to me as—"

"It don't make no difference how plain it is; there ain't nothing in it. I know, because I've been here all the time."

Jim didn't say nothing for about five minutes, but set there studying over it.  Then he says:

"Well, den, I reck'n I did dream it, Huck; but dog my cats ef it ain't de powerfullest dream I ever see.  En I hain't ever had no dream b'fo' dat's tired me like dis one."