THE PILGRIM’S LODGINGS.
Speaking of undertakers, reminds me of a little story: One night a Virginia City policeman while going his round, found an inebriated “pilgrim” reposing on a bench in front of an undertaking establishment. The officer shook the fellow until he awoke him from his drunken slumber, and then explained to him that unless he found other and less public quarters he should be obliged to escort him to the station-house. The pilgrim sat up, and rubbing his eyes, explained to the officer that he was a stranger in the town; that he had but fifty cents in his pocket, and, the night being warm, he had concluded to sleep out of doors, and save his money to pay for a breakfast the next morning. Not being a hard-hearted man the officer told the fellow that he might finish his sleep, provided he would get up and move out of sight before people were astir in the streets.
Passing the same way, in the course of an hour or two, the officer found that his man had rolled off the bench, and was lying at full length in the empty case of a coffin that was standing at the edge of the sidewalk, close beside the bench. Rousing his “pilgrim” again, the officer told him he must “get out of that!”
“Out o’ what?” growled the fellow.
“Why, out of that coffin!” said the officer—though it was only one of those coffin-shaped cases in which coffins are shipped.
“Who’s in a coffin?” asked the fellow, evidently becoming somewhat interested.
“Why, you are!” said the officer.
“Not if I know it, I ain’t!” said the pilgrim.
“Well, I know it,” said the officer sharply, “and if you don’t get out of it pretty shortly it will be the last of you. Don’t you know that if these undertakers get up in the morning and find you snoozing away there, they’ll clap a lid on that coffin, screw it down, hustle you out to the graveyard and bury you, then send in a bill and make the county pay your funeral expenses. It’s just one of the tricks that our Washoe undertakers like to play!”