“The hackmen did not know what was to pay, and, afraid of not being in at the death, they put the string on to their teams, and came clattering on behind as if Satan had kicked ’em on eend. Some of the mourners was sporting characters, and they craned out of the carriage windows and waved their handkerchiefs. The President of Harvard College himself, inspired by the scene, took off his square tile as I passed his house, and waving it three times round his head, cried: “‘Go it, Boots!’ “It _is a_ fact. And I beat him, Sir! I beat him, in three miles, a hundred rods. He gin it up, Sir, in despair.” “His horse was off his feed for a week, and when he took to corn again he wasn’t worth a straw. It was acknowledged on all hands to be the fastest funeral on record, though I say it as shouldn’t. I’m an undertaker, sir, and I never yet was over-taken.” On subsequent inquiry at Porter’s, where the sporting sexton left me, I found that his story was strictly true in all the main particulars. A terrible rumpus was kicked up about the race, but Crossbones swore lustily that the mare had run away—that he had sawed away two inches of her lip in trying to hold her up, and that he could not have done otherwise, unless he had run her into a fence and spilled his “customer” into the ditch. If any one expects to die anywhere near the sexton’s _diggings_, I can assure them that the jolly old boy is still alive and kicking, the very “Ace of Hearts” and “Jack of Spades,” and that now both patent boxes and elliptic springs render his professional conveyance the easiest running thing on the road. ----- [10] By F. A. Durivage, of Boston. XVI. OLD TUTTLE’S LAST QUARTER RACE. As a matter of course a quarter race never goes off without old Tuttle being thar—and he never attends without doing some business! So on Thursday he makes his appearance on the track, on a bay gelding, (with white hind feet,) which he calls “Indian Dick,” and allows he’s as good a scrub as there’ll be on the ground! As old T. is _known_, and Dick has been heard of, the boys are rather shy—but one of them thinks he’s got a scrub that’s “some pumpkins!” and would like to know, without too much cost, how far Dick can beat him; he, therefore, proposes to run them three hundred yards, for “sucks all round.” Old T. understands the game, and says: “No, I don’t want yer to treat this crowd, but I’ll run with yer just to show _yer hoss_ can’t run!” This was what H. wanted, as he thought he could tell the speed of a horse, even tho’ old T. did ride him; so back they go to the score, and are off—with (as might be expected) H. a-head, and old T. in the rear, whipping and spurring like mad, and letting his horse go just fast enough to put H. at about the top of his speed—but he can’t _quite_ come it. “H.’s horse is too smart and can beat him every inch of the road.” So says H., and most of the crowd are of the same opinion.