From the wisdom of Al Swearingen, late of Deadwood, S. D., on the subject of the rapidly approaching telegraph lines:

SWEARENGEN: Messages from invisible sources, or what some people think of as progress.

DORITY: Well, ain’t the heathens used smoke signals all through recorded history?

S: How is that a fucking recommendation?

D: Well, it seems to me like letters posted one person to another is just a slower version of the same idea

S: When’s the last time you got a fucking letter from a stranger?

D: Bad news about Pa.

S: Bad news. Tries against our interest is our sole communication from strangers, so by all means let’s . . . let’s plant poles all across the country, festoon the cocksucker with wires to hurry the sorry word, and blinker our judgements of motive, huh?

D: You’ve given it more thought than me.

S: Ain’t the state of things cloudy enough? Don’t we face enough fucking imponderables?

Bait shop. No Internet in the bait shop.