SKETCHES NEW AND OLD
by Mark Twain
Part 6.
CONTENTS:
"Now that corpse," said the undertaker, patting the folded hands ofdeceased approvingly, was a brick-every way you took him he was a brick.He was so real accommodating, and so modest-like and simple in his lastmoments. Friends wanted metallic burial-case—nothing else would do.I couldn't get it. There warn't going to be time—anybody could seethat.
"Corpse said never mind, shake him up some kind of a box he could stretchout in comfortable, he warn't particular 'bout the general style of it.Said he went more on room than style, anyway in a last final container.
"Friends wanted a silver door-plate on the coffin, signifying who he wasand wher' he was from. Now you know a fellow couldn't roust out such agaily thing as that in a little country-town like this. What did corpsesay?
"Corpse said, whitewash his old canoe and dob his address and generaldestination onto it with a blacking-brush and a stencil-plate, 'long witha verse from some likely hymn or other, and pint him for the tomb, andmark him C. O. D., and just let him flicker. He warn't distressed anymore than you be—on the contrary, just as ca,'m and collected as ahearse-horse; said he judged that wher' he was going to a body would findit considerable better to attract attention by a picturesque moralcharacter than a natty burial-case with a swell door-plate on it.
"Splendid man, he was. I'd druther do for a corpse like that 'n any I'vetackled in seven year. There's some satisfaction in buryin' a man likethat. You feel that what you're doing is appreciated. Lord bless you,so's he got planted before he sp'iled, he was perfectly satisfied; saidhis relations meant well, perfectly well, but all them preparations wasbound to delay the thing more or less, and he didn't wish to be keptlayin' around. You never see such