“I am twice king and twice condemned—and I am sick and tired of it. First a hair and then a bean. If death wants me, let him ride up on a pale mount, ashes in his mouth, ice in his testicles; let him swing a scythe and make horrible noises, let him come for me in person, not send some hair, some fucking little black bean baked in a goody by mutton-butt peasant wives. Even then I might not go. Frankly, I do not like the way death does business.”

