in the carriage next to the hearse; and if she
wanted his heart, it was to be given to her in alcohol. It beat only
for her. Potts was to tell his employers at the store that he parted
with them with regret, but doubtless they would find some other person
more worthy of their confidence and esteem. He said he didn't care
where he was buried, but let it be in some lonely place far from the
turmoil and trouble of the world--some place where the grass grows
green and where the birds come to carol in the early spring-time.

Mr. Potts asked him if he preferred a deep or a shallow grave; but Mr.
Lamb said it made very little difference--when the spirit was gone,
the mere earthly clay was of little account. He owed seventy cents for
billiards down at the saloon, and Potts was to pay that out of the
money in his hands, and to request the clergyman not to preach a
sermon at the cemetery. Then he shook hands with Potts and went away
to his awful doom.

The next morning Mr. Potts wrote to Julia, stopped in to tell them at
the store, and nearly killed Mrs. Lamb with the intelligence. Then he
borrowed Bradley's wagon; and taking with him the coroner, he drove
out to the beach, just below the gas-works, to fetch home the
mutilated corpse. When they reached the spot, the body was not there,
and Potts said he was very much afraid it had been washed away by the
flood tide. So they drove up to Keyser's house, about half a mile
from the shore, to ask if any of the folks there had heard the fatal
pistol-shot or seen the body.

On going around to the wood-pile they saw Keyser holding a terrier dog
backed close up against a log. The dog's tail was lying across the
log, and another man had the axe uplifted. A second later the axe
descended and cut the tail off close to the dog, and while Keyser
restrained the frantic animal, the other man touched the bleeding
stump with caustic. As they let the dog go Potts was amazed to see
that the chopper was the wretched suicide. He was amazed, but
before he could ask any questions Peter stepped up to him and said,
"Hush-sh-sh! Don't say anything about that matter. I thought better
of it. The pistol looked so blamed dangerous when I cocked it that I
changed my mind and came over here to Keyser's to stay all night. I'm
going to live just to spite that Brown girl."

[Illustration: A CURTAILMENT]

Then the coroner said that he didn't consider he had been treated like
a gentleman, and he had half a not