It might seem that Jim is trying to con Huck out of money by telling him that sometimes his hairball requires payment before it speaks, but it must be remembered that Jim himself is superstitious, and that he gladly accepts Huck’s counterfeited quarter, as though to con not Huck but the hairball itself. Huck is, again, practical here, as an adult would be, in saying nothing about his actual dollar, thereby protecting it. Finally, note that, while Jim and Huck are superstitious about the hairball, they do not attribute a supernatural explanation to the re-silvering of the counterfeited quarter. What is considered magical in Huck’s world is arbitrary.