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about two seconds we heard a whack, and the dog he finished up with a most

amazing howl or two, and then everything was dead still, and the parson begun

his solemn talk where he left off. In a minute or two here comes this under-

taker's back and shoulders gliding along the wall again; and so he glided, and

glided, around three sides of the room, and then rose up, and shaded his mouth

with his hands, and stretched his neck out towards the preacher, over the people's

heads, and says, in a kind of a coarse whisper, "He had a rat!" Then he droop-

ed down and glided along ssssssssss

the wall again to his place. ssssssssss

You could see it was a great ssssssssss

satisfaction to the people, ssssssssss

because naturally they want- ssssssssss

ed to know. A little thing ssssssssss

like that don't cost nothing, ssssssssss

and it's just the little things ssssssssss

that makes a man to be look- ssssssssss

ed up to and liked. There ssssssssss

warn't no more popular man ssssssssss

in town than what that ssssssssss

undertaker was. ssssssssss

"Well, the funeral sermon

was very good, but pison ssssssssss

long and tiresome; and then the king he shoved in and got off some of his usual

rubbage, and at last the job was through, and the undertaker begun to sneak up

on the coffin with his screw-driver. I was in a sweat then, and watched him

pretty keen. But he never meddled at all; just slid the lid along, as soft as

mush, and screwed it down tight and fast. So there I was! I didn't know

whether the money was in there, or not. So, says I, spose somebody has hogged

that bag on the sly? -- now how do I know whether to write to Mary Jane or not?

'Spose she dug him up and didn't find nothing -- what would she think of me?

Blame it, I says, I might get hunted up and jailed; I'd better lay low and keep

dark, and not write at all; the thing's awful mixed, now; trying to better it, I've

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