ey 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 advertise Jim,
or something like that. So we can't resk being as long digging him out
as we ought to. By rights I reckon we ought to be a couple of years; but
we can't. Things being so uncertain, what I recommend is this: that we
really dig right in, as quick as we can; and after that, we can LET ON,
to ourselves, that we was at it thirty-seven years. Then we can snatch
him out and rush him away the first time there's an alarm. Yes, I reckon
that 'll be the best way."

"Now, there's SENSE in that," I says. "Letting on don't cost nothing;
letting on ain't no trouble; and if it's any object, I