He said last night that he would be up in
time for breakfast, if he was alive. Well, you can hear him snoring in the
next room; but, since he is not up, I am going to consider him dead, and I
want you to put up his tombstone. Now, do you think that you can go
carefully and put this at the head of his bed without waking him?"

Laying the stone on her knee, she soon had it written over in large, plain
letters, and hoping that Plaisted might sleep till noon, as he often did,
she slipped downstairs to await results.

It is not often that a man is roused from sleep by his own tombstone
falling on him, but that is how was at last awakened. Quite likely
Frankie, fearing to awaken him, did not place it very securely. However, as
Plaisted was about to turn over for another snooze, down came the marble
slab on his papered head! It almost stunned him for a moment, but curiosity
roused him enough to find out what had struck him.

Lifting his arms above his head, he grasped the object, but not calculating
on its weight, it slipped out of his hands and bruised his head in another
spot. Raising on his elbow, he gazed in bewilderment on the thing, but
turning it over he quickly grasped its meaning, for the words thereon were
plain enough for the dullest man to understand, and read as follows:

"Sacred to the memory of
D.S. PLAISTED,
who departed this life while in full health and curl papers.
His death was sudden,
but quite expected.
This monument was erected by one who fully realized his
WORTH-LESS-NESS.
Peace to his ashes."

A few moments of awful silence followed the reading of this inscription,
then curses both loud and deep were heard in the room. With a bound he was
out of bed, and opening the door he flung his tombstone over the baluster
to the bottom of the stairs, with a crash that startled the family from
their seats as if a thunderbolt had shaken the house.

Dexie disappeared instantly, knowing what the noise meant, but feeling
thankful that there was no one near the stairs when the crash came, or she
would have had to seriously repent her joke. As it was, the stairs were
dinged and marred, and the fragments of the tombstone were strewn over the
hall.

It did not take Plaisted long to dress that morning, and he soon appeared
before the assembled family, his brow dark and his eyes flashing.

"Who d