Page:Abroad with Mark Twain and Eugene Field.djvu/129

 MARK AND THE COSTERMONGERS

That Beautiful Funeral

Two Girls Meeting at the Corner of a Street.

"Hullo, I didn't know you had moved up this way again. Who are you in black for?"

"Stepfather. Thank Gowd! he was a reg'lar log on the fambly's leg. Kept a-ebbing and a-flowing and wouldn't die. But you know when we moved to 'Ampsted, that settled him. Those flu winds it was as took 'im off.

"We 'ad a postmortem and everything on 'im, and when they opened 'im you know they found he had two ulsters in his inside and there was 'aricot veins in his legs too. But it was the influential winds that took 'im off, real.

"Of course Mother 'ad 'im insured in all sorts of places. So, poor man, he real paid for all this beautiful mourning we are having on him. We all dress alike in this beautiful black.

"On the funeral day we had all our cousins up from up-country and we had such a beautiful funeral and such a swell party atter. We had a hotch-bone of beef and blanmanges and jellies and cakes and tarts, and by Gowd! we did enjoy ourselves.

"Good-by, Maisie, see you another day, for my missus isn't a disagreeable old cat like most of 'em. That's why I 'ave this bit of talk with you. But I means to better myself soon as I can." 125