at ain't just like you, Huck Finn. You _can_ get up the
infant-schooliest ways of going at a thing. Why, hain't you ever read
any books at all?--Baron Trenck, nor Casanova, nor Benvenuto
Chelleeny, nor Henri IV., nor none of them heroes? Who ever heard of
getting a prisoner loose in such an old-maidy way as that? No; the
way all the best authorities does is to saw the bed-leg in two, and
leave it just so, and swallow the sawdust, so it can't be found, and
put some dirt and grease around the sawed place so the very keenest
seneskal can't see no sign of its being sawed, and thinks the bed-leg
is perfectly sound. Then, the night you're ready, fetch the leg a
kick, down she goes; slip off your chain, and there you are. Nothing
to do but hitch your rope ladder to the battlements, shin down it,
break your leg in the moat--because a rope ladder is nineteen foot too
short, you know--and there's your horses and your trusty vassles, and
they scoop you up and fling you across a saddle, and away you go to
your native Langudoc, or Navarre, or wherever it is. It's gaudy, Huck.
I wish there was a moat to this cabin. If we get time, the night of
the escape, we'll dig one."

I says:

"What do we want of a moat when we're going to snake him out from
under the cabin?"

But he never heard me. He had forgot me and everything else. He had
his chin in his hand, thinking. Pretty soon he sighs and shakes his
head; then sighs again, and says:

"No, it wouldn't do--there ain't necessity enough for it."

"For what?" I says.

"Why, to saw Jim's leg off," he says.

"Good land!" I says; "why, there ain't _no_ necessity for it. And what
would you want to saw his leg off for, anyway?"

"Well, some of the best authorities has done it. They couldn't get the
chain off, so they just cut their hand off and shoved. And a leg would
be better still. But we got to let that go. There ain't necessity
enough in this case; and, besides, Jim's a nigger, and wouldn't
understand the reasons for it, and how it's the custom in Europe; so
we'll let it go. But there's one thing--he can have a rope ladder; we
can tear up our sheets and make him a rope ladder easy enough. And we
can send it to him in a pie; it's mostly done that way. And I've et
worse pies."

"Why, Tom Sawyer, how you talk," I says; "Jim ain't got no use for a
rope ladder."

"He _has_ got use for it. How _you_ talk, you better say; you don't
know nothing about it. He's _got_ to have a rope la