suffer none for lack of paint,” I says, “when you start in to scollop the facts.” 

 “Well, now,” he says, perfectly ca’m, “what would you say if I was to tell you I ain’t going to start in at all?” 

 I was astonished to hear him talk so. I says: 

 “I’d say it’s a lie. You ain’t in earnest, Tom Sawyer?” 

 “You’ll soon see. Was the ghost barefooted?” 

Was the ghost barefooted?

 “No, it wasn’t. What of it?” 

 “You wait—I’ll show you what. Did it have its boots on?” 

 “Yes. I seen them plain.” 

 “Swear it?” 

 “Yes, I swear it.” 

 “So do I. Now do you know what that means?” 

 “No. What does it mean?” 

 “Means that them thieves didn’t get the di’monds.” 

 “Jimminy! What makes you think that?” 

 “I don’t only think it, I know it. Didn’t the breeches and goggles and whiskers and hand-bag and every blessed thing turn to ghost-stuff? Everything it had on turned, didn’t it? It shows that the reason its boots turned too was because it still had them on after it started to go ha’nting around, and if that ain’t proof that them blatherskites didn’t get the boots, I’d like to know what you’d call proof.” 

 Think of that now. I never see such a head as that boy had. Why, I had eyes and I could see things, but they never meant nothing to me. But Tom Sawyer was different. When Tom Sawyer seen a thing it just got up on its hind legs and talked to 

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