AN IMPATIENT UNDERTAKER.
Now and then we come across a scoundrel, an inhuman wretch, of such magnitude that we are inclined, like Bassanio, to waver in our faith, and hold opinion with Pythagoras, that being the only hypothesis by which we are enabled to account for their being possessed of such brutish natures. For example: An undertaker was pointed out to me to-day who follows so close in the wake of death that he quite often appears in advance of the grim leveler, and secures, if possible, the job of burying the body while yet the person is alive, much as he would bespeak a quarter of beef of his neighbor before the animal was butchered. This individual heard that a man was about to die in the County Hospital, and learning that the only friend of the sick man was about to leave the city, he hunted him up and solicited the job of performing the last sad rites for his friend when death should have gathered him in.
The request was unthinkingly granted, and sufficient money to cover the expenses of the burial was placed in the hands of a third party, who was to pay it to the undertaker when the obsequies were performed. The man of coffins departed, smiling over his success. The only thing that remained now between him and a fat profit was the man’s life; but this was only a slim barrier and likely to fall at every breath of air. He paid semi-daily visits to the hospital to learn how the disease was developing.
Each morning as he arose and looked out upon the cold fog hanging over the city, he rubbed his hands with delight, and chuckled as he thought how impossible it would be for the sick man to live through such a disagreeable day. “It’s not in the nature of the disease to allow it,†he argued. “If he is not gone already, he will be as stiff as a piston-rod before ten o’clock, or I am no judge of cause and effect.â€
But somehow the last thread of life was indeed a tough one, and held out wonderfully. One, two and three days dragged by, and still the invalid’s cough waked the echoes of thecorridors and halls of the hospital. This annoyed the anxious undertaker terribly.
“What if he should recover, and cheat me out of the money, after all?†thought he, as he sat in his gloomy office and gazed about upon the coffins standing on their ends around the room.
Then his small gray eyes lingered longer upon the cheap burial case in the corner—which he thought would about fit the man in the hospital. “There’s no use of this delay,†he muttered to himself. “There must be some outside influence brought to bear upon him, and that immediately, or the fellow may linger along through the whole winter, and keep the money lying idle that is now almost within my reach.†Taking a tape measure in his pocket, he repaired at once to the hospital, and gained admittance to the sick man’s room.
The poor fellow was lying apparently in the last stages of that deceptive disease, consumption. But instead of thinking he was so far gone that his obsequies had actually commenced, he was promising himself long, happy years of life and usefulness. The unfeeling scoundrelapproached the bed and deliberately proceeded to measure the poor fellow for his last outfit, in the meantime keeping up a sort of rattling conversation, like the following: “Hello! old boy; so you’re going to peg out, eh? Well, it’s a road that sooner or later we’ve all got to travel; so there’s no use of a feller making any bones over it. Rather young, though, to have to stiffen out; without even having the pleasure of being married—there won’t be no such enjoyment where you’re going, the Scripture tells us. There—that’s a good fellow; stretch out full length, so that I can get a correct measure. If there is anything I do dislike it is to see a corpse stuck into a coffin that’s too short by a few inches. I would rather pinch a fellow a little in width than in length, ’cause it doesn’t cripple a corpse up so bad. There—that’s it to a dot; five feet nine and a quarter, with half an inch allowed for the stretching out of the joints just as you are going off. You know a fellow elongates a little about that time, so I always make some allowance when I measure a live man for his coffin. Now for the depth, my hearty! Jerusalem! a general cavingin all along the line, eh? Why, you’re as flat as a griddle-cake. Ah! that consumption is the thing that plays hob with a fellow! itis, my boy, there’s no use denying it. It scoops a person out mighty quick, I can tell you. Four and three-quarters—four and a-half—pinch measurement. Why, blow me, if it doesn’t seem like a waste of material to give you the standard depth. If it wasn’t for your long feet I would be inclined to shallow a little on you, old boy! Let me think now,—why, what a numbskull I am, to be sure: I can twist your feet crosswise a little, and make a go of it like a charm; but hold on,—no, I can’t do it after all, for there’s your nose sticking up at t’other end, and it wouldn’t hardly be doing the fair thing by you to twist your head around ear up, for the sake of saving a few inches of material, no sir e-e. I wouldn’t do that sort of thing to the deadest corpse I ever screwed a lid over; I’ll do the fair thing by a man, be he dead or living, though it should keep me poor. I can give you the juvenile handles, though, for you don’t weigh any more than a Cape Ann codfish.
BUSINESS IS BUSINESS.
BUSINESS IS BUSINESS.
BUSINESS IS BUSINESS.
“You’re going off the reel at a favorable time, too, for I’ve been wishing for a chance to give my light team an airing, for some time. Old Skidamadink over on Market street, I hear, is going to take out a stiff one to-morrow afternoon also, and no doubt he will be trying to forge ahead of me the way he did yesterday when Ihad the spavined grays along; but he’ll find out that he has got to limber up a little differently when Moll and Kate are stuck in his flank. He wouldn’t have shook me off yesterday, if I hadn’t that soggy old sea captain aboard. He seemed to grow heavier the longer I kept him. If there is any one thing I dislike more than another it is a pussy corpse. It is bad enough to have a fat person about you while living, but when they come to peter out it’s worse,—you can’t chuck them under the ground too quick. I had the old emblem of mortality packed away in an ice chest for three weeks, waiting for his wife to come down from the Mountains to attend the funeral, but she finally sent down word that she had got married again, and if she knew the duties of a wife—and she thought she did—her place was alongside of a living husband rather than traipsing after a dead one. Oh! these women are terribly slippery sweetmeats the world over. How fast they get over anything, crying one minute and singing the next. Well, well, I often wonder whether they have the genuine feeling that we men have.
“Well, business is business. There—now letme fold your arms across until I get the width; so we go, so we go, steady, there you are, that’s it, that’s the posish; natural and easy as death itself. Whew! there it is again, never knew it to fail, follows as naturally as the fruit does the blossom; broad across the shoulders, sure sign of consumption; show me a person broader at the shoulders than at the hips and I will show you an individual that is not long for this world; never knew a person of that build that didn’t die of consumption; never, sir; bound to cave, no getting around or climbing over it; might as well be knocked in the head at birth, for they are sure to go some time.
“Well, time is crowding, I must be off, as I’ve got to rustle around in order to have things ready for you. I’ll expect to find you over your troubles in the morning, so I’ll say good-bye now, while you can appreciate it.â€
Thus did the inhuman scoundrel rattle along while his poor victim lay paralyzed with fear; hope, at every word uttered by the monster, deserting his breast, and despair usurping the vacant seat. With gaping mouth and wide open eyes he watched each movement of the undertaker.His face seemed to be all eyes as he stared at the bustling trader in death.
The hope of the visitor was, that a speedy death would follow this disconsolate harangue; but happy to relate, patients sometimes recover after doctors have devoted them to the yew-tree shade; and strange as it may seem, the patient in question suddenly improved, as though frightened by the undertaker into health instead of into his coffin.
The next day he sat up in bed. On the second he sat by the window. The third day he took an airing on the veranda, and passed the time of day with the undertaker who happened to be going by. In ten days he took his carpetbag in his hand and bade good-bye to both doctors and undertaker, and started to join his friend in the country.