The last words were uttered in a faint whisper; no further sound came from the moving lips; the death film crept over his eyes, and he was gone. He had lasted well and long, for avarice is a powerful antiseptic. The dry heart burns to the socket, and the selfish miser was blessed with an euthanasia that a saint might have envied.
The nearest physician, Dr. Wattletop, was swiftly summoned, only to return discomfited, as he expressed it, by that omnipotent leech who carries his lancet at the end of a snath.
The fall of so heavily laden a body into the great ocean of eternity created, to use a homely simile, an unusual splash, and occasioned no little commotion in Belton.
"Why, sir," said Mr. Madison Mumbie, the eminent paper-maker, addressing Dr. Wattletop, in the agitation of the moment, "Why, sir, Mr. Obershaw's wealth is e-normous! Probably the richest man we had in the State. Yes, sir" (with a sigh), "I regret to say it, we have lost a gentleman, and a Christian, who leaves at least two millions of dollars. Yes, sir, two millions at the lowest calculation—he leaves all of that!"
"Leaves!" repeated the doctor. "Aye, there's the rub. Now, if he could only have taken the two millions with him, there would have been something in it, wouldn't there?"
This view of the case did not strike Mr. Mumbie, who was himself rather inclined to accumulate, as cheerful or encouraging, and he went his way in a meditative mood.
Mr. Mook, the gentlemanly undertaker, in walking twenty rods from the residence of the deceased, was accosted by not less than a dozen anxious inquirers eager to learn the slightest particular relating to the sorrowful event. To whom Mr. Mook, with that mingled air of neatness, despatch, and meek resignation to the decrees of Providence, which characterized him, replied in a serious and very proper way. The information imparted was invariably received by the questioners with expressions of deep interest and sympathy, as if they had lost a near and dear friend. It is sad to add, though, that one individual, George Gildersleeve, the noisiest quidnunc in Belton, was on the contrary rather discourteous and disparaging in his inquiries and comments. George is a man of substance, and proprietor of the Archimedes Works. A burly fellow of middle age, with chest and loins like an ox, coarse mouth, hale complexion, and sandy hair shorn close over an obstinate head. Rich and purse-proud, he proclaims himself a plebeian, and in keeping therewith is generally seen divested of coat and hands in pockets. Thus he appeared in the doorway of his counting-room as Mr. Mook came down the street, and passed the Archimedes Works. Decorous and mournful Mook affected not to see Gildersleeve, dreading him as a bore and button-holder; but the stratagem was futile, and bluff George, hailing the undertaker as "Commodore," brought him—speaking nautically—"to."
"First-class obsequies, sir, have been ordered. Most elegant rosewood casket, new pattern silver handles. Everything in the most rekerchey and approved style. Funeral on Wednesday," Mook replied, in a tone of mild reproof, in answer to Gildersleeve's query as to when he was going to put old Uncle John to bed with a shovel.
Mr. Mook took pride in his profession. He was the inventor and patentee of a burial casket, that for "ease, elegance, and comfort," as he admiringly described it, was equalled by few and surpassed by none.