“Well, in de second place, birds is creturs dat goes a long ways, but a flea don’t.”

“He don’t, don’t he? Come, now, what is a long distance, if you know?”

“Why, it’s miles, and lots of ’em—anybody knows dat.”

“Can’t a man walk miles?”

“Yassir, he kin.”

“As many as a railroad?”

“Yassir, if you give him time.”

“Can’t a flea?”

“Well—I s’pose so—ef you gives him heaps of time.”

“Now you begin to see, don’t you, that distance ain’t the thing to judge by, at all; it’s the time it takes to go the distance in that counts, ain’t it?”