“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.”