Adventures of Huckleberry Finn The Duke and The King Quotes

"Because Mary Jane 'll be in mourning from this out; and first you know the n***** that does up the rooms will get an order to box these duds up and put 'em away; and do you reckon a n***** can run across money and not borrow some of it?" (26.97)

Here, the duke is basically saying that all black men are thieves—which, of course, is exactly what the duke is. Ah, hypocrisy. But it's really no worse than the rest of the antebellum South, which welcomes in white strangers and… locks up black strangers.

"Old man," said the young one, "I reckon we might double-team it together; what do you think?" (19.16)

Talk about meet-cute. These two guys start off trying to con each other, and they end up going off to con the whole word—or, at least, the whole Mississippi. With the duke and the king, we get a pretty good look at how not to do friendship.