The One Man: "Well, that's the question. You see he interduced some things into ondertaking that waz new. He hed, for instance, a way, as he called it, of manniperlating the features of the deceased." The Other Man (quietly): "How manniperlating?" The One Man (struck with a bright and aggressive thought): "Look yer, did ye ever notiss how, generally speakin', onhandsome a corpse is?" The Other Man had noticed this fact. The One Man (returning to his fact): "Why there was Mary Peebles, ez was daughter of my wife's bosom friend--a mighty pooty girl and a professing Christian--died of scarlet fever. Well, that gal--I was one of the mourners, being my wife's friend--well, that gal, though I hedn't, perhaps, oughter say--lying in that casket, fetched all the way from some A1 establishment in Chicago, filled with flowers and furbelows--didn't really seem to be of much account. Well, although my wife's friend, and me a mourner--well, now, I was--disappointed and discouraged." The Other Man (in palpably affected sympathy): "Sho! now!" "Yes, SIR! Well, you see, this yer ondertaker, this Wilkins, hed a way of correctin' all thet. And just by manniperlation. He worked over the face of the deceased ontil he perduced what the survivin' relatives called a look of resignation,--you know, a sort of smile, like. When he wanted to put in any extrys, he perduced what he called--hevin' reglar charges for this kind of work--a Christian's hope." The Other Man: "I want to know." "Yes. Well, I admit, at times it was a little startlin'. And I've allers said (a little confidentially) that I had my doubts of its being Scriptoorl, or sacred, we being, ez you know, worms of the yearth; and I relieved my mind to our pastor, but he didn't feel like interferin', ez long ez it was confined to church membership. But the other day, when Cy Dunham died--you disremember Cy Dunham?" A long interval of silence. The Other Man was looking out of the window, and had apparently forgotten his companion completely. But as I stretched my head out of the curtain I saw four other heads as eagerly reached out from other berths to hear the conclusion of the story. One head, a female one, instantly disappeared on my looking around, but a certain tremulousness of her window-curtain showed an unabated interest. The only two utterly disinterested men were the One Man and the Other Man. The Other Man (detaching himself languidly from the window): "Cy Dunham?"