CHAPTER III. John Brown’s Body and the Bones of John Paul Jones. That Paul Jones was not alone soon became evident. With his coming, other ghostly forms had taken shape in the semi-gloom and the admiral became the centre of a throng which included the greatest men of all time—the only great men, in fact, for one must die before he can be accorded any measure of greatness. Only in the perspective of the past does a man loom large in the vision of the present. “It were better to be a live politician than a dead hero,” observed Paul Jones, reading my thoughts. Then he sighed. “But you are honored on earth and even here,” I said, with a glance around the circle at the illustrious members of the Asbestos Society of Sinners. “Earthly honor is but hysteria,” Jones replied wearily. “Yet, ‘twas ever thus. One is usually crushed by the honors showered upon him, as were the Romans in attending the banquet of Emperor Elagabalus, who rained roses upon his guests until all were buried and smothered by the flowers. Like them ‘bouquets’ are thrown at me when I am dead, of which I would have been more appreciative while living. Yet ‘bouquets’ are preferable to ‘brickbats,’ even though they do not make so lasting an impression. Hades, as you will soon learn, is more of a news centre than London, and so I have heard that in recent years the city hall of New York was draped in mourning for Hiram Cronk, last survivor of the War of 1812, whose only claim to fame was that he did not die sooner. If earthly honors died on earth I wouldn’t complain, but they are all reproduced in Hades, which is a burlesque of the upper world. Ever since Ambassador Porter found a body which he thought might have looked like me had I looked like that body, I have been given homage by every man in Hades. The joke of the matter—if a Scotchman may take an Irish bull by the horns and joke at his own funeral—is that there is no certainty about the body being mine.” “Do you doubt it in the face of—” “When face to face with a dead doubt, don’t look a gift corpse in the mouth,” interrupted the admiral dryly. “Had Porter done so, he would have discovered two gold teeth, and I really must insist that if that body is mine, those teeth were filled after I died. In the old days, before the doctors invented appendicitis, I did not mind swallowing all the grape sent with the enemy’s compliments, but I always did draw the line at the dentist’s chair, and any manipulator of the forceps would have struck a snag had he investigated my corpse too closely. Perhaps I ought not to complain, for it may be that if I keep my mouth shut I shall get a decent funeral, and unfortunately this is supposed to be my funeral.” “But the proofs,” I remonstrated.