“That marble slab has arrived at last. Our own beautiful slab, with its polished surface, was manufactured expressly to our order, on which to impose the forms of the Forest Press, a fit emblem and unmistakable evidence of the almost unparalleled success of an enterprise started in the very hell of the season and circumstances on a one-horse load of old, good-for-nothing, worn-out, rotten and “bottled” material, taken in payment, etc., and a will to succeed. After we shall have fulfilled our mission through the Press and have done with the things of earth, that same slab can be used by the weeping “devils” on which to dance a good-bye to us and our sins, after which they may inscribe with burning charcoal on its polished surface, in letters of transient darkness:
‘Here
lies
Pete.
The
old
cuss
is
dead.’
“Our mother was a Christian, the best friend we had, and the name of her truant son—your servant—was the last she uttered. We are not a Christian, but when convinced we should be we will be. Never intend to marry or die, if we can help it. In brief, we are a white Indian.”