A long interval of silence. The Other Man was looking out of the window, and had apparently forgotten his companion completely. But as I stretched my head out of the curtain I saw four other heads as eagerly reached out from other berths to hear the conclusion of the story. One head, a female one, instantly disappeared on my looking around, but a certain tremulousness of her window-curtain showed an unabated interest. The only two utterly disinterested men were the One Man and the Other Man.
The Other Man (detaching himself languidly from the window): "Cy Dunham?"
"Yes; Cy never hed hed either convictions or purfessions. Uster get drunk and go round with permiscous women. Sorter like the prodigal son, only a little more so, ez fur ez I kin judge from the facks ez stated to me. Well, Cy one day petered out down at Little Rock, and was sent up yer for interment. The fammerly, being proud-like, of course didn't spare no money on that funeral, and it waz--now between you and me--about ez shapely and first-class and prime-mess affair ez I ever saw. Wilkins hed put in his extrys.
He hed put onto that prodigal's face the A1 touch,--hed him fixed up with a 'Christian's hope.' Well, it was about the turning-point, for thar waz some of the members and the pastor hisself thought that the line oughter to be drawn somewhere, and thar was some talk at Deacon Tibbet's about a reg'lar conference meetin' regardin' it. But it wasn't thet which made him onpoplar."
Another silence; no expression nor reflection from the face of the Other Man of the least desire to know what ultimately settled the unpopularity of the undertaker. But from the curtains of the various berths several eager and one or two even wrathful faces, anxious for the result.
The Other Man (lazily recurring to the fading topic): "Well, what made him onpoplar?"
The One Man (quietly): "Extrys, I think--that is, I suppose, not knowin'" (cautiously) "all the facts. When Mrs. Widdecombe lost her husband, 'bout two months ago, though she'd been through the valley of the shadder of death twice--this bein' her third marriage, hevin' been John Barker's widder--"
The Other Man (with an intense expression of interest): "No, you're foolin' me!"
The One Man (solemnly): "Ef I was to appear before my Maker to-morrow, yes! she was the widder of Barker."
The Other Man: "Well, I swow."
The One Man: "Well, this Widder Widdecombe, she put up a big funeral for the deceased. She hed Wilkins, and thet ondertaker just laid hisself out. Just spread hisself. Onfort'natly,--perhaps fort'natly in the ways of Providence,--one of Widdecombe's old friends, a doctor up thar in Chicago, comes down to the funeral. He goes up with the friends to look at the deceased, smilin' a peaceful sort o' heavinly smile, and everybody sayin' he's gone to meet his reward, and this yer friend turns round, short and sudden on the widder settin' in her pew, and kinder enjoyin, as wimen will, all the compliments paid the corpse, and he says, says he:--
"'What did you say your husband died of, marm?'
"'Consumption,' she says, wiping her eyes, poor critter.
'Consumption--gallopin' consumption.'
"'Consumption be d--d,' sez he, bein' a profane kind of Chicago doctor, and not bein' ever under conviction. 'Thet man died of strychnine. Look at thet face. Look at thet contortion of them fashal muscles. Thet's strychnine. Thet's risers Sardonikus' (thet's what he said; he was always sorter profane).
"'Why, doctor,' says the widder, 'thet--thet is his last smile.
It's a Christian's resignation.'
"'Thet be blowed; don't tell me,' sez he. 'Hell is full of thet kind of resignation. It's pizon. And I'll--' Why, dern my skin, yes we are; yes, it's Joliet. Wall, now, who'd hey thought we'd been nigh onto an hour."
Two or three anxious passengers from their berths: "Say; look yer, stranger! Old man! What became of--"
But the One Man and the Other Man had vanished.
