The following mutually beneficial exchange takes place in Tom Sawyer, and the author concludes with a nugget of wisdom that seems to have been lost on intellectuals for a century or so:
“Say -- what’s that?” [Tom asks Huckleberry Finn]
“Nothing but a tick.”
“Where’d you get him?”
“Out in the woods.”
“What’ll you take for him?”
“I don’t know. I don’t want to sell him.”
“All right. It’s a mighty small tick, anyway.”
“Oh, anybody can run a tick down that don’t belong to them. I’m satisfied with it. It’s a good enough tick for me.”
“Sho, there’s ticks a plenty. I could have a thousand of ‘em if I wanted to.”
“Well, why don’t you? Becuz you know mighty well you can’t. This is a pretty early tick, I reckon. It’s the first one I’ve seen this year.”
“Say, Huck -- I’ll give you my tooth for him.”
“Less see it.”
Tom got out a bit of paper and carefully unrolled it. Huckleberry viewed it wistfully. The temptation was very strong.
At last he said: “Is it genuwyne?”
Tom lifted his lip and showed the vacancy.
“Well, all right,” said Huckleberry, “it’s a trade.”
Tom enclosed the tick in the percussion-cap box that had lately been the pinchbug’s prison, and the boys separated, each feeling wealthier than before.
