“All of it?”
“Every word, sentence, paragraph, and punctuation mark.”
“My Gawd!... Say, Lady, now lookit here! This here thing is loaded with dynamite, nitroglycerin, TNT, and mustard gas. The dum thing’s apt to go off right on the printin’ press and blow the whole shebang to smithereens. If I was to drop a page onto the floor—whoof!... Better think it over.”
“I’ve thought it over.”
“Um!... It’s funny what folks calls thinkin’ sometimes! Hain’t despondent, be ye?”
“No. Why?”
“’Cause, if ye be, and kind of want to shuffle off’n this mortal coil, you kin pick out easier ’n’ pleasanter ways of doin’ it. There’s layin’ down with your head on the railroad track, f’r instance.”
“Are you afraid, Tubal?”
“Bet your life,” said Tubal, unabashed. “Can’t say I git so much joy out of life that it makes me go around hollerin’ and singin’, but what there is of it I kind of like. When you’re dead you can’t chaw tobacker. Ruther chaw than twiddle a harp. Uh huh. Hain’t no printer’s ink to smell in heaven.”
“But maybe you won’t go to heaven, Tubal.”