Reader, it is utterly impossible for the writer to inform you of the occupation of all the others—in fact, he is not morally certain that he did right in making an antiquary of Marmaduke. Take the matter into your own hands, and think in what business those boys would succeed best. If you can tell, good—very good; the writer is spared the trouble.
Therefore: Each reader is at liberty to make what he pleases of Will, Charles, George, Stephen, Jim, and Henry. There is, however, this proviso: Do not think of Charles as an ambassador to Persia; of Steve, as the “proprietor” of a pea-nut stand; of Jim, as a reader of ghost-stories at midnight. Do not think of one of them as a future candidate for the presidency.
Something has been said of Steve’s calligraphic propensities. But he never made his fortune with his pencil; he did little more than while away an idle hour.
“Ah,” sighs the conscientious reader, “were those boys not reformed? Did the faults of their boyhood cling to them in their manhood?”
Yes; they clung to them. It was originally the intention to reform them, one and all; but insurmountable difficulties lay in the way. In the first place, nothing short of a frightful, perhaps fatal, catastrophe could have a lasting effect on them; and it is unpleasant to deal with catastrophes. Consequently, they are suffered to live on, their ways not amended. But the writer is as grieved at their follies, or faults, as you are, gentle reader.
After a careful and critical perusal of this composition,—which the writer is conceited enough boldly to call “tale,” “story,” and “history,” and indirectly to call “romance” and “novel,”—the reader may inquire, vaguely: “Who is supposed to be the hero of it, anyway?”
The writer does not resent this as an insult, but replies calmly that he does not know. In the beginning, it was designed that Will should be the hero-in-chief, but it soon became manifest that that was a mistaken idea. Will is, at best, a shabby hero, not half so noble as the gamins in the fable, who stopped stoning the frogs when the frogs reasoned them out of it.
In point of religion, Will is probably the best of all, though each one is sound in his belief. George does not permit his scientific hobbies to shake his faith in God or man; and if the reader imagines he detects profane levity in the course of this book, he is mistaken, for nothing of the sort is intended.
We do not inform possible inquirers what church these worthies attended, or whether each one attended a different church. We do not disclose with which political party they sided, but it may be taken for granted that they were not all Republicans nor all Democrats.