"Mark Twain. Tom Sawyer Abroad (англ.)" - читать интересную книгу автора

"What of it? That don't mean that the balloon's the welkin."
"Oh, I thought it did. Well, then, what is a welkin?"
I see in a minute he was stuck. He raked and scraped around in his
mind, but he couldn't find nothing, so he had to say:
"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."
"Why, Mars Tom, sholy you can't mean to say I don't know about shirts,
when, goodness knows, I's toted home de washin' ever sence-"
"I tell you, this hasn't got anything to do with shirts. I only-"
"Why, Mars Tom, you said yo'self dat a letter-"
"Do you want to drive me crazy? Keep still. I only used it as a
metaphor."
That word kinder bricked us up for a minute. Then Jim says-rather
timid, because he see Tom was getting pretty tetchy:
"Mars Tom, what is a metaphor?"
"A metaphor's a-well, it's a-a-a metaphor's an illustration." He see
THAT didn't git home, so he tried again. "When I say birds of a feather
flocks together, it's a metaphorical way of saying-"
"But dey DON'T, Mars Tom. No, sir, 'deed dey don't. Dey ain't no
feathers dat's more alike den a bluebird en a jaybird, but ef you waits
till you catches dem birds together, you'll-"
"Oh, give us a rest! You can't get the simplest little thing through
your thick skull. Now don't bother me any more."
Jim was satisfied to stop. He was dreadful pleased with himself for
catching Tom out. The minute Tom begun to talk about birds I judged he was
a goner, because Jim knowed more about birds than both of us put together.
You see, he had killed hundreds and hundreds of them, and that's the way
to find out about birds. That's the way people does that writes books
about birds, and loves them so that they'll go hungry and tired and take
any amount of trouble to find a new bird and kill it. Their name is
ornithologers, and I could have been an ornithologer myself, because I
always loved birds and creatures; and I started out to learn how to be
one, and I see a bird setting on a limb of a high tree, singing with its