The Bridgeport evening farmer., 1911-09-21

all the conditions You wilt do that, wort yoc Gribber promised with something pe-ilously like joyful alacrity.
 There ain't much as there was" the old woman went on. but don't owe nothing out O what there is. Feel under the pillow" ] Gribber did so, and presently drew forth a grubby, dog-biscuit-colored savings-bank book and
 .All right; put the bag back" Aunt Porchcr said That's pound or two loose, just to pay for things. Look in the book It ought to be jist over undred and twenty now.
 It was one hundred and twenty pounds fifteen shillings in exact figures. Gribber experienced mingled feehngs-some qualification, for this certainly an amount worth having; and some dis. appointment for it very low in the hundreds indeed He resolved to do the funeral at the cheapest possible figure.
 1The will you'll find all right Aunt Porcher concluded "Ill see about that. It's what said all to you. provided you bury me at Thorpe Dedham, near mother. An I'm tired; an I think can sleep, little. Good-by. Dan, my boy.
 We'll, it seemed settled that there was to be fair profit out of Aunt Porcher. after all, if not left. and entrusted her with six penny stamps. One was to be used to communicate with him as no more than twenty-four hours. But if the the breakup came suddenly, then the 1andlady was authorized and empowered to squander the whole
 Gribber was most friendly and gracious with. the landlady, but he did not mean to leave her alone with Aunt Porchers possessions if he could help it. Also, there was grandniece to bear in mind. K
 Gribber began his journey home in a rather happy frame of mind but finished it in perplexity and alarm. AS a prudent of business he { dropped in at each undertakers on the way to the railway station, to ascertain the very lowest derry-down, rock-bottom cut price for a plain coffin and laying out, delivered complete. with corpse enclosed, free on rail at St. Pancras.
 The result made him very uncomfortable. At first he received the estimates with airy dersion. nails jeweled four holes, soon it grew plain that the thing really was going to run into money; ana then his tuned to positive would even consider his proposal to give the corpses old clothes in whole or part payment, but themselves grew derisve (if not indignantly at the suggestion.
 He had at first even indulged the hope that he might discover an undertaken from whom actual cash profit might be derived in the matter of those old clothes, and above the cost of the coffin seeing that the coffin itself might be of any quality trary. the coffin was going to cost good deal more than it seemed to be worth
 Gribber fell to calculating prime costs with such results that he set aside for future consideration the idea of adding little undertaking trade to As if the undertaker's estimates were not suf- z dciently alarming another blow awaited Gribber corpse, properly packed in cof1n would travel at good rates; but inquiry elicted the stagger- ing information that the carriage would come to thirty-three shillings!
 The thing seemed so absurd that Gribber ven- tured to reprove the official for his obvious igno- rance of the company's regulations, since he, Gribber, alive and well could travel the distance for exactly onetwelfth of the sum, with liability on the company in case of his death by accident, which, for obvious reasons, they need not fear in the case of corpse But all for naught for the impatient official thrusting his finger into the midst of great printed column of charges and regulations withdrew to his work and left the dismayed Gribber to face thesindubitable, printed, exorbitant black-and-white fact that the un- blushing charge for the conveyance of corpse was truly and actually shilling mile
 Poor Gribber entered the train gloomy and soured legatee; and he reached Thorpe Dedham at last to find occasion for more sourness and increased gloom. For he there ascertained, that though the burial fees for a person dying in the parish were moderate. those for an imported corpse very different matter.
 Although it would seem that Aunt Porcher was bent on dying with every circumstance of