l66 MARK TWAIN'S SKETCHES. 



pockets. It will be exliibited at the coroner's inquest, and will be damning proof of the fact of the 

 killing. These latter facts may be relied on, as we get them from Mark Antony, whose position 

 enables him to learn every item of news connected with the one subject of absorbing interest of 

 to-day. 



"Later. — While the coroner was summoning a jury, Mark Antony and other friends of the 

 late Caesar got hold of the body, and lugged it off to the Forum, and at last accounts Antony and 

 Brutus were making speeches over it and raising such a row among the people that, as we go to 

 press, the chief of police is satisfied there is going to be a riot, and is taking measures accordingly." 



THE WIDOW'S PROTEST. 



ONE of the saddest things that ever came under my notice (said the banker's 

 clerk) was there in Corning, during the war. Dan Murphy enlisted as a 

 private, and fought very bravely. The boys all liked him, and when a 

 wound by-and-by weakened him down till carrying a musket was too heavy work 

 for him, they clubbed together and fixed him up as a sutler. He made money then, 

 and sent it always to his wife to bank for him. She was a washer and ironer, and 

 knew enough by hard experience to keep money when she got it. She didn't waste 

 a penny. On the contrary, she began to get miserly as her bank account grew. 

 She grieved to part with a cent, poor creature, for twice in her hard-working life 

 she had known what it was to be hungry, cold, friendless, sick, and without a 

 dollar in the world, and she had a haunting dread of suffering so again. Well, at 

 last Dan died ; and the boys, in testimony of their esteem and respect for him, tele- 

 graphed to Mrs. Murphy to know if she would like to have him embalmed and sent 

 home ; when you know the usual custom was to dump a poor devil like him into a 

 shallow hole, and then inform his friends what had become of him. Mrs. Murphy 

 jumped to the conclusion that it would only cost two or three dollars to embalm 

 her dead husband, and so she telegraphed " Yes." It was at the " wake " that the 

 bill for embalming arrived and was presented to the widow. 



She uttered a wild sad wail that pierced every heart, and said, " Sivinty-foive 

 dollars for stooffin' Dan, blister their sowls! Did thim divils suppose I was goin' 

 to stairt a Museim, tjiat I'd be dalin' in such expinsive curiassities! " 



The banker's clerk said there was not a dry eye in the house. 



