Az Eszterházy Károly Tanárképző Főiskola Tudományos Közleményei. 2002. Vol. 8. Eger Journal of American Studies.(Acta Academiae Paedagogicae Agriensis : Nova series ; Tom. 28)

Studies - Gabriella Varró: The Adventures of the Minstrel Sign in Mark Twain 's Huckleberry Finn

probably is Chapter 14, where Jim and Huck first begin to talk about some very illustrious people, and then they exchange ideas about the wisdom of the Biblical King Solomon, and finally they debate about the strange language of French people: I read considerable to Jim about kings, and dukes, and earls, and such, and how gaudy they dressed, and how much style they put on, and called each other your majesty, and your grace, and your lordship, and so on, 'stead of mister; and Jim's eyes bugged out, and he was interested. He says: '1 didn' know dey was so many un um. I hain't hearn 'bout none un um, skasely, but ole King Sollermun, onless you counts dem kings dat's in a pack er k'yards. How much do a king get?' 'Get?' I says; 'why, they get a thousand dollars a month if they want it; they can have just as much as they want; everything belongs to them.

' 'AirC dat gay? En what dey got to do, Huck? 'They don't do nothing! Why how you talk. They just set around.' 'No

—is dat so?' 'Of course it is. They just set around. Except maybe when there's a war; then they go to the war. But other times they just lazy around; or go hawking

—just hawking and [...] and other times, when things is dull, they fuss with the parlyment; and if everybody don't go just so he whacks their heads of. But mostly they hang round the harem.' (84-85) This is where the dialogue between Huck and Jim shifts to the wise King Solomon theme. We are informed that Solomon "had about a million wives" in his harem, and that the harem itself is a "bo'd'nhouse," Jim claims, and it is rather noisy, mostly because "de wives quarrels considerable." Still Solomon is said to be the wisest man on earth, although he lived at such a noisy place. "I doan' take no stock in dat," says Jim, "Bekase why: would a wise man want to live in the mids' er sich a blimblammin' all de time?" (85) 'Well, but he was the wisest man, anyway; because the widow she told me so, her own self.' 'I doan k'yer what de widder say, he warn't no wise man, nuther. He had some er de ded-fetchedes' ways I ever see. Does you know 'bout dat chile dat he 'uz gwyne to chop in two?' ' Yes, the widow told me all about it.

' 'Well, den! Warn' dat de beatenes' notion in de wort'? You jes' take en look at it a minute. [...] 267