s and prime-mess affair ez I
ever saw. Wilkins hed put in his extrys. He hed put onto that
prodigal's face the A1 touch,--hed him fixed up with a 'Christian's
hope.' Well, it was about the turning-point, for thar waz some of the
members and the pastor hisself thought that the line oughter to be
drawn somewhere, and thar was some talk at Deacon Tibbet's about a
reg'lar conference meetin' regardin' it. But it wasn't thet which made
him onpoplar."

Another silence; no expression nor reflection from the face of the
Other Man of the least desire to know what ultimately settled the
unpopularity of the undertaker. But from the curtains of the various
berths several eager and one or two even wrathful faces, anxious for
the result.

The Other Man (lazily recurring to the fading topic): "Well, what made
him onpoplar?"

The One Man (quietly): "Extrys, I think--that is, I suppose, not
knowin'" (cautiously) "all the facts. When Mrs. Widdecombe lost her
husband, 'bout two months ago, though she'd been through the valley of
the shadder of death twice--this bein' her third marriage, hevin' been
John Barker's widder--"

The Other Man (with an intense expression of interest): "No, you're
foolin' me!"

The One Man (solemnly): "Ef I was to appear before my Maker to-morrow,
yes! she was the widder of Barker."

The Other Man: "Well, I swow."

The One Man: "Well, this Widder Widdecombe, she put up a big funeral
for the deceased. She hed Wilkins, and thet ondertaker just laid
hisself out. Just spread hisself. Onfort'natly,--perhaps fort'natly
in the ways of Providence,--one of Widdecombe's old friends, a doctor
up thar in Chicago, comes down to the funeral. He goes up with the
friends to look at the deceased, smilin' a peaceful sort o' heavinly
smile, and everybody sayin' he's gone to meet his reward, and this yer
friend turns round, short and sudden on the widder settin' in her pew,
and kinder enjoyin, as wimen will, all the compliments paid the corpse,
and he says, says he:--

"'What did you say your husband died of, marm?'

"'Consumption,' she says, wiping her eyes, poor critter.
'Consumption--gallopin' consumption.'

"'Consumption be d--d,' sez he, bein' a profane kind of Chicago doctor,
and not bein' ever under conviction. 'Thet man died of strychnine.
Look at thet face. Look at thet contortion of them fashal muscles.
Thet's strychnine. Thet's risers Sardonikus' (thet's what he said; he
was always sorter profane