“Cheese it, pard; you’ve banked your ball clean outside the string. What I was drivin’ at, was, that he never _throwed_ off on his mother—don’t you see? No indeedy. He give her a house to live in, and town lots, and plenty of money; and he looked after her and took care of her all the time; and when she was down with the smallpox I’m d—d if he didn’t set up nights and nuss her himself! _Beg_ your pardon for saying it, but it hopped out too quick for yours truly. You’ve treated me like a gentleman, pard, and I ain’t the man to hurt your feelings intentional. I think you’re white. I think you’re a square man, pard. I like you, and I’ll lick any man that don’t. I’ll lick him till he can’t tell himself from a last year’s corpse! Put it _there_!” (Another fraternal hand-shake—and exit). The obsequies were all that “the boys” could desire. Such a marvel of funeral pomp had never been seen in Virginia. The plumed hearse, the dirge-breathing brass bands, the closed marts of business, the flags drooping at half-mast, the long, plodding procession of uniformed secret societies, military battalions and fire companies, draped engines, carriages of officials, and citizens in vehicles and on foot, attracted multitudes of spectators to the sidewalks, roofs, and windows; and for years afterward, the degree of grandeur attained by any civic display in Virginia was determined by comparison with Buck Fanshaw’s funeral. Scotty Briggs, as a pall-bearer and a mourner, occupied a prominent place at the funeral, and when the sermon was finished and the last sentence of the prayer for the dead man’s soul ascended, he responded in a low voice, but with feeling: “AMEN. No Irish need apply.” AN ABANDONED TOWN