The poor fellow was lying apparently in the last stages of that deceptive disease, consumption. But instead of thinking he was so far gone that his obsequies had actually commenced, he was promising himself long, happy years of life and usefulness. The unfeeling scoundrel approached the bed and deliberately proceeded to measure the poor fellow for his last outfit, in the meantime keeping up a sort of rattling conversation, like the following: “Hello! old boy; so you’re going to peg out, eh? Well, it’s a road that sooner or later we’ve all got to travel; so there’s no use of a feller making any bones over it. Rather young, though, to have to stiffen out; without even having the pleasure of being married—there won’t be no such enjoyment where you’re going, the Scripture tells us. There—that’s a good fellow; stretch out full length, so that I can get a correct measure. If there is anything I do dislike it is to see a corpse stuck into a coffin that’s too short by a few inches. I would rather pinch a fellow a little in width than in length, ’cause it doesn’t cripple a corpse up so bad. There—that’s it to a dot; five feet nine and a quarter, with half an inch allowed for the stretching out of the joints just as you are going off. You know a fellow elongates a little about that time, so I always make some allowance when I measure a live man for his coffin. Now for the depth, my hearty! Jerusalem! a general caving in all along the line, eh? Why, you’re as flat as a griddle-cake. Ah! that consumption is the thing that plays hob with a fellow! it _is_, my boy, there’s no use denying it. It scoops a person out mighty quick, I can tell you. Four and three-quarters—four and a-half—pinch measurement. Why, blow me, if it doesn’t seem like a waste of material to give you the standard depth. If it wasn’t for your long feet I would be inclined to shallow a little on you, old boy! Let me think now,—why, what a numbskull I am, to be sure: I can twist your feet crosswise a little, and make a go of it like a charm; but hold on,—no, I can’t do it after all, for there’s your nose sticking up at t’other end, and it wouldn’t hardly be doing the fair thing by you to twist your head around ear up, for the sake of saving a few inches of material, no sir e-e. I wouldn’t do that sort of thing to the deadest corpse I ever screwed a lid over; I’ll do the fair thing by a man, be he dead or living, though it should keep me poor. I can give you the juvenile handles, though, for you don’t weigh any more than a Cape Ann codfish. [Illustration: BUSINESS IS BUSINESS.]