ir runaway nigger, but
hadn't got no answer, because there warn't no such plantation; so he
allowed he would advertise Jim in the St. Louis and New Orleans
papers; and when he mentioned the St. Louis ones it give me the cold
shivers, and I see we hadn't no time to lose. So Tom said, now for the
nonnamous letters.

"What's them?" I says.

"Warnings to the people that something is up. Sometimes it's done one
way, sometimes another. But there's always somebody spying around that
gives notice to the governor of the castle. When Louis XVI. was going
to light out of the Tooleries a servant-girl done it. It's a very good
way, and so is the nonnamous letters. We'll use them both. And it's
usual for the prisoner's mother to change clothes with him, and she
stays in, and he slides out in her clothes. We'll do that, too."

"But looky here, Tom, what do we want to _warn_ anybody for that
something's up? Let them find it out for themselves--it's their
lookout."

"Yes, I know; but you can't depend on them. It's the way they've acted
from the very start--left us to do _everything_. They're so confiding
and mullet-headed they don't take notice of nothing at all. So if we
don't _give_ them notice there won't be nobody nor nothing to
interfere with us, and so after all our hard work and trouble this
escape 'll go off perfectly flat; won't amount to nothing--won't be
nothing _to_ it."

"Well, as for me, Tom, that's the way I'd like."

"Shucks!" he says, and looked disgusted. So I says:

"But I ain't going to make no complaint. Any way that suits you suits
me. What you going to do about the servant-girl?"

"You'll be her. You slide in, in the middle of the night, and hook
that yaller girl's frock."

"Why, Tom, that 'll make trouble next morning; because, of course, she
prob'bly hain't got any but that one."

"I know; but you don't want it but fifteen minutes, to carry the
nonnamous letter and shove it under the front door."

"All right, then, I'll do it; but I could carry it just as handy in my
own togs."

"You wouldn't look like a servant-girl _then_, would you?"

"No, but there won't be nobody to see what I look like, _anyway_."

"That ain't got nothing to do with it. The thing for us to do is just
to do our _duty_, and not worry about whether anybody _sees_ us do it
or not. Hain't you got no principle at all?"

"All right, I ain't saying nothing; I'm the servant-girl. Who's Jim's
mother?"

"I'm his mother. I'll hoo