THE UNDERTAKER'S CHAT. 



""TW TOW, that corpse," said the undertaker, patting the folded hands of 

 X^ deceased approvingly, " was a brick — every way you took him he was 

 a brick. He was so real accommodating, and so modest-like and 

 simple in his last moments. Friends wanted metallic burial case — nothing else 

 would do. / couldn't get it. There warn't going to be time — anybody could 

 see that. 



" Corpse said never mind, shake him up some kind of a box he could stretch 

 out in comfortable, he warn't particular 'bout the general style of it. Said he 

 went more on room than style, any way in a last final container. 



" Friends wanted a silver door-plate on the cofHUj signifying who he was and 

 wher' he was from. Now you know a fellow couldn't roust out such a gaily 

 thing as that in a little country town like this. What did corpse say ? 



" Corpse said, whitewash his old canoe and dob his address and general des- 

 tination onto it with a blacking brush and a stencil plate, long with a verse from 

 some likely hymn or other, and p'int him for the tomb, and mark him C. O. D., 

 and just let him flicker. He warn't distressed any more than you be — on the 

 contrary just as ca'm and collected as a hearse-horse; said he judged that wher' 

 he was going to a body would find it considerable better to attract attention by 

 a picturesque moral character than a natty burial case with a swell door-plate 

 on it. 



" Splendid man, he was. I'd druther do for a corpse like that 'n any I've 

 tackled in seven year. There's some satisfaction in buryin' a man like that. 

 You feel that what you're doing is appreciated. Lord bless you, so's he got 

 planted before he sp'iled, he was perfectly satisfied ; said his relations meant 

 well, /<?rfectly well, but all them preparations was bound to delay the thing 



247 



