Florists' shops had been ransacked, greenhouses laid waste, the leading carriages were moving jungles of blossoms. It was magnificent, and as the procession wound its slow way into Calvary, the heart of the undertaker swelled with pride. Not that he was justified; the glory was the glory of Paper-Box Johnny, who stood back of all this gloomy splendor with his purse.
“Remember,” was Paper-Box's word to the undertaker, “I'm no piker, an' neither was Phil; so wade in wit' th' bridle off, an' make th' spiel same as if you was buryin' yourself.”
Thus exhorted, and knowing the solvency of Paper-Box, the undertaker had no more than broken even with his responsibilities.
Later, Paper-Box became smitten of concern because he hadn't thought to hire a brass band. A brass band, he argued, breathing Chopin's Funeral March, would have given the business a last artistic touch.
“I'd ought to have me nut caved in for forget-tin' it,” he declared; “but Phil bein' croaked like he was, got me rattled. I'm all in th' air right now! Me head won't be on straight ag'in for a mont'.”
In the face of Paper-Box's self-condemnation, ones expert in those sorrowful matters of crape and immortelles, averred that the funeral was a credit to Casey, and regrets were expressed that the bullet in that dead hero's brain forbade his sitting up in the hearse and enjoying what was being done in his honor.
As the first shovelful of earth awoke the hollow responses of the coffin, there occurred what story writers are fond of describing as a dramatic incident. As though the hollow coffin-note had been the dead voice of Casey calling, Dago Frankie knelt at the edge of the grave. Lifting his hands to heaven, he vowed to shed without mercy the blood of Goldie Louie and Brother Bill Orr, on sight. The vow was well received by the uncovered ring of mourners, and no one doubted but Casey's eternal slumbers would be the sounder for it.
In the beginning, she went by the name of Leoni; the same being subsequently lengthened, for good and sufficient reasons, to Leoni the Trouble Maker. As against this, however, her monaker, with the addition, “Badger,” as written upon her picture—gallery number 7409—to be found in that interesting art collection maintained by the police, was given as Mabel Grey.
Leoni—according to Detective Biddinger of that city's Central Office—was born in Chicago, upon a spot not distant from the banks of the classic Drainage Canal. She came to New York, and began attracting police attention about eight years ago. In those days, radiant as a star, face of innocent beauty, her affections were given to an eminent pickpocket known and dreaded as Crazy Barry, and it was the dance she led that bird-headed person's unsettled destinies which won her the nom de cour of Trouble Maker.
It was unfortunate, perhaps, since it led to many grievous complications, that Leoni's love lacked every quality of the permanent. Hot, fierce, it resembled in its intensity a fire in a lumber yard. Also, like a fire in a lumber yard, it soon burned itself out. Her heart was as the heart of a wild goose, and wondrous migratory.