They asked us considerable many questions; wanted to know what we covered up the raft that way for, and laid by in the daytime instead of running-was Jim a runaway n*****?
Says I: “Goodness sakes, would a runaway n***** run south?”
No, they allowed he wouldn’t.
– Mark Twain
The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn, Chapter 20. The Duke and the King are questioning Huck about the slave Jim, asking if he was a runaway. Huck thinks on his feet with this ingenious sarcastic reply. He wasn’t intentionally going south, but had made a wrong turn and uses his mistake to cover up their plan.