“Preach the funeral discourse? Assist at the obsequies?”
“Obs’quies is good. Yes. That’s it—that’s our little game. We are going to get the thing up regardless, you know. He was always nifty himself, and so you bet you his funeral ain’t going to be no slouch—solid silver door-plate on his coffin, six plumes on the hearse, and one nigger on the box in a biled shirt and a plug hat—how’s that for high? And we’ll take care of you pard. We’ll fix you all right. There’ll be a kerridge for you; and whatever you want, you just ’scape out and we’ll ’tend to it. We’ve got a shebang fixed up for you to stand behind, in No. 1’s house, and don’t you be afraid. Just go in and toot your horn, if you don’t sell a clam. Put Buck through as bully as you can, pard, for anybody that knowed him will tell you that he was one of the whitest men that was ever in the mines. You can’t draw it too strong. He never could stand it to see things going wrong. He’s done more to make this town quiet and peaceable than any man in it. I’ve seen him lick four Greasers in eleven minutes, myself. If a thing wanted regulating, he warn’t a man to go browsing around for somebody to do it, but he would prance in and regulate it himself. He warn’t a Catholic. Scasely. He was down on ’em. His word was ‘No Irish need apply!’ But it didn’t make no difference about that when it came down to what a man’s rights was—and so, when some roughs jumped the Catholic boneyard and started in to stake out town lots in it he went for ’em! And he cleaned ’em, too! I was there, pard, and I seen it myself.”
“That was very well, indeed—at least the impulse was—whether the act was strictly defensible or not. Had deceased any religious convictions? That is to say, did he feel a dependence upon, or acknowledge allegiance to a higher power?”
More reflection.
“I reckon you’ve stumped me again, pard. Could you say it over once more, and say it slow?”
“Well, to simplify it somewhat, was he, or rather had he ever been connected with any organization sequestered for secular concerns and devoted to self-sacrifice in the interests of morality?”
“All down but nine—set ’em up on the other alley, pard.”
“What did I understand you to say?”
“Why, you’re most too many for me, you know. When you get in with your left I hunt grass every time. Every time you draw, you fill; but I don’t seem to have any luck. Let’s have a new deal.”
“How? Begin again?”