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"Well, then, what we going to do, Tom?"
"I'll tell you. It ain't right, and it ain't moral, and I wouldn't like
it to get out; but there ain't only just the one way: we got to dig him
out with the picks, and LET ON it's case-knives."
"NOW you're TALKING!" I says; "your head gets leveler and leveler all
the time, Tom Sawyer," I says. "Picks is the thing, moral or no moral;
and as for me, I don't care shucks for the morality of it, nohow. When I
start in to steal a nigger, or a watermelon, or a Sunday-school book, I
ain't no ways particular how it's done so it's done. What I want is my
nigger; or what I want is my watermelon; or what I want is my
Sunday-school book; and if a pick's the handiest thing, that's the thing
I'm a-going to dig that nigger or that watermelon or that Sunday-school
book out with; and I don't give a dead rat what the authorities thinks
about it nuther."
"Well," he says, "there's excuse for picks and letting-on in a case like
this; if it warn't so, I wouldn't approve of it, nor I wouldn't stand by
and see the rules broke--because right is right, and wrong is wrong, and
a body ain't got no business doing wrong when he ain't ignorant and knows
better. It might answer for YOU to dig Jim out with a pick, WITHOUT any
letting on, because you don't know no better; but it wouldn't for me,
because I do know better. Gimme a case-knife."
He had his own by him, but I handed him mine. He flung it down, and
says:
"Gimme a CASE-KNIFE."
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