Page:The Mystery of Central Park.djvu/43

Rh "Death is a horrible thing," she remarked sadly, as they filed through the iron doors again.

"It is, miss," the keeper assented. "I've had charge of this here Morgue for these twenty years, still if I was to allow myself to think about death and the mystery of the here-after, I'd go crazy."

"But the thought of Heaven. It is surely some consolation," faltered Penelope.

"Twenty years' work in there," nodding his head towards the throne where death sits always; where the only noise is the sound of the dripping water; "hasn't left any fairy tales in my mind about what comes after. We live, and when we're dead that's the last of it. You can tell children about the 'good man' and 'bad man' and Heaven and—beggin' your pardon—Hell, just the same as you tell them about Santa Claus, but when they grow up if they thinks for themselves they know its fairy