Chapter 43 - Page 2

lay-out. Or especially a woman. F'r instance:
Mrs. O'Flaherty comes in--widow--wiping her eyes and kind of moaning.
Unhandkerchiefs one eye, bats it around tearfully over the stock; says--

' "And fhat might ye ask for that wan?"

' "Thirty-nine dollars, madam," says I.

' "It 's a foine big price, sure, but Pat shall be buried like
a gintleman, as he was, if I have to work me fingers off for it.
I'll have that wan, sor."

' "Yes, madam," says I, "and it is a very good one, too; not costly,
to be sure, but in this life we must cut our garment to our clothes,
as the saying is." And as she starts out, I heave in, kind of casually,
"This one with the white satin lining is a beauty, but I am afraid--
well, sixty-five dollars is a rather--rather--but no matter, I felt
obliged to say to Mrs. O'Shaughnessy--"

' "D'ye mane to soy that Bridget O'Shaughnessy bought the mate
to that joo-ul box to ship that dhrunken divil to Purgatory in?"

' "Yes, madam."

' "Then Pat shall go to heaven in the twin to it, if it takes
the last rap the O'Flaherties can raise; and moind you,
stick on some extras, too, and I'll give ye another dollar."

'And as I lay-in with the livery stables, of course I don't forget to mention
that Mrs. O'Shaughnessy hired fifty-four dollars' worth of hacks and flung
as much style into Dennis's funeral as if he had been a duke or an assassin.
And of course she sails in and goes the O'Shaughnessy about four hacks
and an omnibus better. That used to be, but that's all played now;
that is, in this particular town. The Irish got to piling up hacks so,
on their funerals, that a funeral left them ragged and hungry for
two years afterward; so the priest pitched in and broke it all up.
He don't allow them to have but two hacks now, and sometimes only one.'

'Well,' said I, 'if you are so light-hearted and jolly in ordinary times,
what must you be in an epidemic?'

He shook his head.

'No, you're off, there. We don't like to see an epidemic.
An epidemic don't pay. Well, of course I don't mean that, exactly;
but it don't pay in proportion to the regular thing.
Don't it occur to you, why?'

No.

'Think.'

'I can't imagine. What is it?'

'It's just two things.'

'Well, what are they?'

'One's Embamming.'

'And what's the other?'

'Ice.'

'How is that?'

'Well, in ordinary times, a person dies, and we lay him up in ice;
one day two days, maybe three, to wait for friends to come.
Takes a lot of it--melts fast. We charge jewelry rates for that ice,
and war-prices for attendance. Well, don't you know, when there's
an epidemic, they rush 'em to the cemetery the minute the breath's out.