andclasp, "I'll come to see you when I get back to town; and, in
the meantime, if you meet any of our artists, tell them you have left
Caius Marius among the ruins of Carthage."

The Sculptor's Funeral

A group of the townspeople stood on the station siding of a little
Kansas town, awaiting the coming of the night train, which was already
twenty minutes overdue. The snow had fallen thick over everything; in
the pale starlight the line of bluffs across the wide, white meadows
south of the town made soft, smoke-colored curves against the clear sky.
The men on the siding stood first on one foot and then on the other,
their hands thrust deep into their trousers pockets, their overcoats
open, their shoulders screwed up with the cold; and they glanced from
time to time toward the southeast, where the railroad track wound along
the river shore. They conversed in low tones and moved about restlessly,
seeming uncertain as to what was expected of them. There was but one of
the company who looked as though he knew exactly why he was there; and
he kept conspicuously apart; walking to the far end of the platform,
returning to the station door, then pacing up the track again, his chin
sunk in the high collar of his overcoat, his burly shoulders drooping
forward, his gait heavy and dogged. Presently he was approached by a
tall, spare, grizzled man clad in a faded Grand Army suit, who shuffled
out from the group and advanced with a certain deference, craning his
neck forward until his back made the angle of a jackknife three-quarters
open.

"I reckon she's agoin' to be pretty late ag'in tonight, Jim," he
remarked in a squeaky falsetto. "S'pose it's the snow?"

"I don't know," responded the other man with a shade of annoyance,
speaking from out an astonishing cataract of red beard that grew
fiercely and thickly in all directions.

The spare man shifted the quill toothpick he was chewing to the other
side of his mouth. "It ain't likely that anybody from the East will come
with the corpse, I s'pose," he went on reflectively.

"I don't know," responded the other, more curtly than before.

"It's too bad he didn't belong to some lodge or other. I like an
order funeral myself. They seem more appropriate for people of some
reputation," the spare man continued, with an ingratiating concession
in his shrill voice, as he carefully placed his toothpick in his vest
pocket. He always carried the flag at the G. A. R. funerals in the town