reads my last letter
to him. Another sum of money I have put away, in good hands where he
won't have a chance to get it, for my funeral expenses, and then you
see I am through with the world. I have nobody to leave that I need
worry about, or who would either take care of me or feel sorry for me
if I needed care or sympathy, which I do not. So that is why I laugh,
and that is why I come down and sit upon this bench, in the sunshine,
and enjoy the posthumous joke."

Robbins did not appear to see the humor of the situation quite as
strongly as the Living Skeleton did. At different times after, when
they met he had offered the Skeleton more money if he wanted it, so
that he might prolong his life a little, but the Skeleton always
refused.

A sort of friendship sprang up between Robbins and the Living Skeleton,
at least, as much of a friendship as can exist between the living and
the dead, for Robbins was a muscular young fellow who did not need to
live at the Riviera on account of his health, but merely because he
detested an English winter. Besides this, it may be added, although it
really is nobody's business, that a Nice Girl and her parents lived in
this particular part of the South of France.

One day Robbins took a little excursion in a carriage to Toulon. He had
invited the Nice Girl to go with him, but on that particular day she
could not go. There was some big charity function on hand, and one
necessary part of the affair was the wheedling of money out of people's
pockets, so the Nice Girl had undertaken to do part of the wheedling.

She was very good at it, and she rather prided herself upon it, but
then she was a very nice girl, pretty as well, and so people found it
difficult to refuse her. On the evening of the day there was to be a
ball at the principal hotel of the place, also in connection with this
very desirable charity. Robbins had reluctantly gone to Toulon alone,
but you may depend upon it he was back in time for the ball.

"Well," he said to the Nice Girl when he met her, "what luck
collecting, to-day?"

"Oh, the greatest luck," she replied enthusiastically, "and whom do you
think I got the most money from?"

"I am sure I haven't the slightest idea--that old English Duke, he
certainly has money enough."

"No, not from him at all; the very last person you would expect it
from--your friend, the Living Skeleton."

"What!" cried Robbins, in alarm.

"Oh, I found him on the bench where he usua