MINERVA

t of the nigger-patch and eat it; and he made me go and give the niggers a dime without telling them what it was for. Tom said that what he meant was, we could steal anything we _needed_. Well, I says, I needed the watermelon. But he said I didn’t need it to get out of prison with; there’s where the difference was. He said if I’d a wanted it to hide a knife in, and smuggle it to Jim to kill the seneskal with, it would a been all right. So I let it go at that, though I couldn’t see no advantage in my representing a prisoner if I got to set down and chaw over a lot of gold-leaf distinctions like that every time I see a chance to hog a watermelon. Well, as I was saying, we waited that morning till everybody was settled down to business, and nobody in sight around the yard; then Tom he carried the sack into the lean-to whilst I stood off a piece to keep watch. By-and-by he come out, and we went and set down on the woodpile to talk. He says: “Everything’s all right now except tools; and that’s easy fixed.” “Tools?” I says. “Yes.” “Tools for what?” “Why, to dig with. We ain’t a-going to _gnaw_ him out, are we?” “Ain’t them old crippled picks and things in there good enough to dig a nigger out with?” I says. He turns on me, looking pitying enough to make a body cry, and says: “Huck Finn, did you _ever_ hear of a prisoner having picks and shovels, and all the modern conveniences in his wardrobe to dig himself out with? Now I want to ask you—if you got any reasonableness in you at all—what kind of a show would _that_ give him to be a hero? Why, they might as well lend him the key and done with it. Picks and shovels—why, they wouldn’t furnish ’em to a king.” “Well, then,” I says, “if we don’t want the picks and shovels, what do we want?” “A couple of case-knives.” “To dig the foundations out from under that cabin with?” “Yes.” “Confound it, it’s foolish, Tom.” “It don’t make no difference how foolish it is, it’s the _right_ way—and it’s the regular way. And there ain’t no _other_ way, that ever _I_ heard of, and I’ve read all the books that gives any information about these things. They always dig out with a case-knife—and not through dirt, mind you; generly it’s through solid rock. And it takes them weeks and weeks and weeks, and for ever and ever. Why, look at one of them prisoners in the bottom dungeon of the Castle Deef, in the harbor of Marseilles, that dug himself out that way; how long was _he_ at it, you reckon?” “I don’t know.” “Well, guess.” “I don’t know. A month and a half.” “_Thirty-seven year_—and he come out in China. _That’s_ the kind. I wish the bottom of _this_ fortress was solid rock.” “_Jim_ don’t know nobody in China.” “What’s _that_ got to do with it? Neither did that other fellow. But you’re always a-wandering off on a side issue. Why can’t you stick to the main point?” “All right—_I_ don’t care where he comes out, so he _comes_ out; and Jim don’t, either, I reckon. But there’s one thing, anyway—Jim’s too old to be dug out with a case-knife. He won’t last.” “Yes he will _last_, too. You don’t reckon it’s going to take thirty-seven years to dig out through a _dirt_ foundation, do you?” “How long will it take, Tom?” “Well, we can’t resk being as long as we ought to, because it mayn’t take very long for Uncle Silas to hear from down there by New Orleans. He’ll hear Jim ain’t from there. Then his next move will be to