"Yes," he agreed. "And I want to give my family and relations the
remaining million and a half dollars, provided," he said, accenting the
'provided,' "they carry out faithfully the provisions of the clause
providing for the perpetual care and maintenance of my tomb. If they
don't care and maintain," he said, giving me a hard look, "that million
and a half is to go to the Home for Flea-Bitten Dogs."
"They'll care and maintain, all right!" I laughed.
"I think so," said Remington Solander gravely. "I do think so, indeed!
And now, sir, we come to the important part. You, as I know, are a
trustee of the cemetery."
"Yes," I said, "I am."
"For drawing this clause of my will, if you can draw it," said Remington
Solander, looking me full in the eye with both his own, which were like
the eyes of a salt mackerel, "I shall pay you five thousand dollars."
Well, I almost gasped. It was a big lot of money for drawing one clause
of a will, and I began to smell a rat right there. But, I may say, the
proposition Remington Solander made to me was one I was able, after
quite a little talk with my fellow trustees of the cemetery, to carry
out. What Remington Solander wanted was to be permitted to put a radio
loud-speaking outfit in his granite tomb--a radio loud-speaking outfit
permanently set at 327 meters wave-length, which was to be the
wave-length of his endowed broadcasting station. I don't know how
Remington Solander first got his remarkable idea, but just about that
time an undertaker in New York had rigged up a hearse with a phonograph
so that the hearse would loud-speak suitable hymns on the way to the
cemetery, and that may have suggested the loud-speaking tomb to
Remington Solander, but it is not important where he got the idea. He
had it, and he was set on having it carried out.
* * * * *
"Think," he said, "of the uplifting effect of it! On the highest spot in
the cemetery will stand my noble tomb, loud-speaking in all directions
the solemn and holy words and music I have collected in my fourteen
volumes. All who enter the cemetery will hear; all will be ennobled and
uplifted."
That was so, too. I saw that at once. I said so. So Remington Solander
went on to explain that the income from the five hundred thousand
dollars would be set aside to keep "A" batteries and "B" batteries
supplied, to keep the outfit in repair, and so on. So I tackled the job
rather enthusiastically. I don't say that the five-thousand-dollar fee
did not interest me, but I did think Remington Solander had a grand
idea. It would make our cemetery stand out. People would come from
everywhere to see and listen. The lots in the new addition would sell
like hot cakes.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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