Roughing It by Mark Twain (large screen ebook reader .txt) 📕

thief that ever drawed breath. Pard, he was on it! He was on it bigger than an Injun!”

“On it? On what?”

“On the shoot. On the shoulder. On the fight, you understand. He didn’t give a continental for anybody. Beg your pardon, friend, for coming so near saying a cuss-word⁠—but you see I’m on an awful strain, in this palaver, on account of having to cramp down and draw everything so mild. But we’ve got to give him up. There ain’t any getting around that, I don’t reckon. Now if we can get you to help plant him⁠—”

“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 doorplate on his coffin, six plumes on the hearse, and a 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 after 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 bone-yard 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 from 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. Lets have a new deal.”

“How? Begin again?”

“That’s it.”

“Very well. Was he a good man, and⁠—”

“There⁠—I see that; don’t put up another chip till I look at my hand. A good man, says you? Pard, it ain’t no name for it. He was the best man that ever⁠—pard, you would have doted on that man. He could lam any galoot of his inches in America. It was him that put down the riot last election before it got a start; and everybody said he was the only man that could have done it. He waltzed in with a spanner in one hand and a trumpet in the other, and sent fourteen men home on a shutter in less than three minutes. He had that riot all broke up and prevented nice before anybody ever got a chance to strike a blow. He was always for peace, and he would have peace⁠—he could not stand disturbances. Pard, he was a great loss to this town. It would please the boys if you could chip in something like that and do him justice. Here once when the Micks got to throwing stones through the Methodis’ Sunday school windows, Buck Fanshaw, all of his own notion, shut up his saloon and took a couple of six-shooters and mounted guard over the Sunday school. Says he, ‘No Irish need apply!’ And they didn’t. He was the bulliest man in the mountains, pard! He could run faster, jump higher, hit harder, and hold more tangle-foot whisky without spilling it than any man in seventeen counties. Put that in, pard⁠—it’ll please the boys more than anything you could say. And you can say, pard, that he never shook his mother.”

“Never shook his mother?”

“That’s it⁠—any of the boys will tell you so.”

“Well, but why should he shake her?”

“That’s what I say⁠—but some people does.”

“Not people of any repute?”

“Well, some that averages pretty so-so.”

“In my opinion the man that would offer personal violence to his own mother, ought to⁠—”

“Cheese it, pard; you’ve banked your ball clean outside the string. What I was a drivin’ at, was, that he never throwed off on his mother⁠—don’t you see? No indeedy. He give her a house to live in, and town lots, and plenty of money; and he looked after her and took care of her all the time; and when she was down with the smallpox I’m d⁠—d if he didn’t set up nights and nuss her himself! Beg your pardon for saying it, but it hopped out too quick for yours truly. You’ve treated me like a gentleman, pard, and I ain’t the man to hurt your feelings intentional. I think you’re white. I think you’re a square man, pard. I like you, and I’ll lick any man that don’t. I’ll lick him till he can’t