"It's altogether wrong," said Myers. "If I was dead, I'd lie still and
quit wandering about over the face of the earth."

"Maria, don't you know me?" asked the major, indignantly.

"I used to know you when you were alive; but now that you're gone, I
don't expect to recognize you until we meet in a better world."

"But, Maria, I am not dead. You certainly see that I am alive."

"Not dead! Didn't you send word to me that you were? Am I to refuse
to believe my own husband? The life insurance company says you are
deceased; the lodge says so; the coroner officially asserts the fact.
What am I to do? The evidence is all one way."

"But you _shall_ accept me as alive!" shouted the major, in a rage.

"Mr. Myers," said the widow, calmly, "hadn't we better send for the
undertaker to come and bury these remains?"

"Look here!" said Myers. "I'm the last man to do a dead friend an
injury, but I ain't going to have any departed spirit coming in here
and giving this lady hysterics. You pack up and go back, and stay
there, or I'll have you hustled into a tomb quicker'n lightning. Hurry
up now; don't stop to think about it!"

"This beats the very old Harry!" said the major, in astonishment.

"No answering back, now," said Myers. "When I want communications
from the other world, I'll hunt up a spiritualist medium and get my
information out of knocks on a table. All you've got to do is to creep
off into the tomb somewhere and behave."

"You're perfectly certain I'm dead, are you?" said the major, getting
calmer.

"Why, of course."

"Can a dead man violate the laws?"

"Certainly not."

"Well, then, I'm going to hammer you with this club, and I reckon
you'll find me the most energetic corpse in the county."

They say that the fight was terrific. First the major was on top, then
Myers; and as they rolled over and over in the porch the widow sat by
and surveyed the scene. Finally, Myers explained that upon the whole
he believed he had enough; and when the major had given him a few
supplementary thumps, he got up, and gazing at the prostrate Myers and
at the widow, he said,

"Take her; take her, young man. You're welcome to her. I wouldn't have
her if she was the only woman in the temperate zone. But let me tell
you, before you get her, that when you are married to her you'll wish
something'd happen to send you down to the bottom of the ocean and
anchor you there."

[Illustration: "TAKE HER, YOUNG MAN!"]

Then the maj