“I don’t know, and nobody don’t know. It’s just a word, and it’s a mighty good word, too. There ain’t many that lays over it. I don’t believe there’s any that does.”
“Shucks!” I says. “But what does it mean?—that’s the p’int.”
“I don’t know what it means, I tell you. It’s a word that people uses for—for—well, it’s ornamental. They don’t put ruffles on a shirt to keep a person warm, do they?”
“Course they don’t.”
“But they put them on, don’t they?”
“Yes.”
“All right, then; that letter I wrote is a shirt, and the welkin’s the ruffle on it.”
I judged that that would gravel Jim, and it did.
“Now, Mars Tom, it ain’t no use to talk like dat; en, moreover, it’s sinful. You knows a letter ain’t no shirt, en dey ain’t no ruffles on it, nuther. Dey ain’t no place to put ’em on; you can’t put em on, and dey wouldn’t stay ef you did.”
“Oh do shut up, and wait till something’s started that you know something about.”