"Oh, don't, Mr. Nevius," entreated Carol. "Don't get anything the matter with your disposition. We don't care where else you collect them, as long as you keep on making us laugh. But, woodman, spare that disposition."
Nevius pulled out the note-book and crossed off the notation. "There it goes again," he muttered. "Women always were a blot on the escutcheon of scientific progress. Just to oblige you, I've got to forego the pleasure of making a medical curiosity of myself. Well, well. Women are all right for domestic purposes, but they sure are a check on science."
"They are a check on your bank-book, too, let me tell you," said Barrows quickly. "I never cared how much my wife checked me up on science, but when she checked me out of three bank-accounts I drew the line."
"Speaking of death," began Nevius suddenly.
"Nobody spoke of it, and nobody wants to," said Carol.
"Miss Tucker suggests it by the forlornity of her attitude. And since she has started the subject, I must needs continue. I want to tell you something funny. You weren't here when Reddy Waters croaked, were you, Duke? He had the cottage next to mine. I was in bed at the time with—well, I don't remember where I was breaking out at the time, but I was in bed. You may have noticed that I have what might be called a classic pallor, and a general resemblance to a corpse."
Nancy shivered a little and Carol frowned, but Nevius continued imperturbably. "The undertaker down-town is a lunger, and a nervous wreck to boot. But he is a good undertaker. He works hard. Maybe he is practising up so he can do a really artistic job on himself when the time comes. Anyhow, Reddy died. They always come after them when the rest of us are in at dinner. It interferes with the appetite to see the long basket going out. So when the rest were eating, old Bennett comes driving up after Reddy. It was just about dark, that dusky, spooky time when the shadows come down from the mountains and cover up the sunny slopes you preachers rave about. So up comes Bennett, and he got into the wrong cottage. First thing I knew, some one softly pushed open the door, and in walked Bennett at the front end of the long basket, the assistant trailing him in the rear. I felt kind of weak, so I just laid there until Bennett got beside me. Then I slowly rose up and put out one cold clammy hand and touched his. Bennett choked and the assistant yelled, and they dropped the basket and fled. I rang the bell and told the nurse to make that crazy undertaker come and get the right corpse that was patiently waiting for him, and she called him on the telephone. Nothing doing. A corpse that didn't have any better judgment than that could stay in bed until doomsday for all of him. So they had to get another undertaker. But Bennett told her to get the basket and he would send the assistant after it. But I held it for ransom, and Bennett had to pay me two dollars for it."
His auditors wiped their eyes, half ashamed of their laughter.
"It is funny," said Nancy Tucker, "but it seems awful to laugh at such things."
"Awful! Not a bit of it," declared Barrows. "It's religious. Doesn't it say in the Bible, 'Laugh and the world laughs with you, Die and the world laughs on'?"