“You’re going off the reel at a favorable time, too, for I’ve been wishing for a chance to give my light team an airing, for some time. Old Skidamadink over on Market street, I hear, is going to take out a stiff one to-morrow afternoon also, and no doubt he will be trying to forge ahead of me the way he did yesterday when I had the spavined grays along; but he’ll find out that he has got to limber up a little differently when Moll and Kate are stuck in his flank. He wouldn’t have shook me off yesterday, if I hadn’t that soggy old sea captain aboard. He seemed to grow heavier the longer I kept him. If there is any one thing I dislike more than another it is a pussy corpse. It is bad enough to have a fat person about you while living, but when they come to peter out it’s worse,—you can’t chuck them under the ground too quick. I had the old emblem of mortality packed away in an ice chest for three weeks, waiting for his wife to come down from the Mountains to attend the funeral, but she finally sent down word that she had got married again, and if she knew the duties of a wife—and she thought she did—her place was alongside of a living husband rather than traipsing after a dead one. Oh! these women are terribly slippery sweetmeats the world over. How fast they get over anything, crying one minute and singing the next. Well, well, I often wonder whether they have the genuine feeling that we men have. “Well, business is business. There—now let me fold your arms across until I get the width; so we go, so we go, steady, there you are, that’s it, that’s the posish; natural and easy as death itself. Whew! there it is again, never knew it to fail, follows as naturally as the fruit does the blossom; broad across the shoulders, sure sign of consumption; show me a person broader at the shoulders than at the hips and I will show you an individual that is not long for this world; never knew a person of that build that didn’t die of consumption; never, sir; bound to cave, no getting around or climbing over it; might as well be knocked in the head at birth, for they are sure to go some time. “Well, time is crowding, I must be off, as I’ve got to rustle around in order to have things ready for you. I’ll expect to find you over your troubles in the morning, so I’ll say good-bye now, while you can appreciate it.” Thus did the inhuman scoundrel rattle along while his poor victim lay paralyzed with fear; hope, at every word uttered by the monster, deserting his breast, and despair usurping the vacant seat. With gaping mouth and wide open eyes he watched each movement of the undertaker. His face seemed to be all eyes as he stared at the bustling trader in death.