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Harte, Bret, 1836-1902

"Drift from Two Shores"

Hed, they say
(VERY CAUTIOUSLY), lost three wives hisself, and five children by
this yer new disease--dipthery--out in Wisconsin. I don't know the
facts, but that's what's got round."
The Other Man: "But how did he lose his poplarity?"
The One Man: "Well, that's the question. You see he interduced
some things into ondertaking that waz new. He hed, for instance, a
way, as he called it, of manniperlating the features of the
deceased."
The Other Man (quietly): "How manniperlating?"
The One Man (struck with a bright and aggressive thought): "Look
yer, did ye ever notiss how, generally speakin', onhandsome a
corpse is?"
The Other Man had noticed this fact.
The One Man (returning to his fact): "Why there was Mary Peebles,
ez was daughter of my wife's bosom friend--a mighty pooty girl and
a professing Christian--died of scarlet fever. Well, that gal--I
was one of the mourners, being my wife's friend--well, that gal,
though I hedn't, perhaps, oughter say--lying in that casket,
fetched all the way from some A1 establishment in Chicago, filled
with flowers and furbelows--didn't really seem to be of much
account.


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