"Yes, a good respectable monument. You see I'm alone in the world. Suppose I die to-morrow, what do I leave to remember me by?"
Mrs. Prymmer did not venture an answer to this question, so he went on. "I'd be wiped out,—forgotten. The hands down at the sardine factories would say, 'He was a finicky boss, we're glad he's gone.' Some of the boys would remark, 'A queer coot that, he always held a good hand at cards, and didn't like to play against the grain of the table.' But for the general public,—now say, Hippolyta, what would keep my memory green with them?"
"Your monument," she said, with a flash of inspiration.
"Precisely; my monument, my good, walking, sober, respectable monument. It would mourn, and it would weep, and folks would see that I was well advertised."
Mrs. Prymmer did not exactly take in his conception of a walking monument, but she held her peace and calmly picked up a dropped stitch.
"Now, in order that my monument should be able to know something of me and take some interest in advertising me after I'm gone, it's absolutely necessary that it should know something of me while I am alive, Hippolyta."
"Oh, yes," she said, as indulgently as if she were speaking to a child whose mind was taking a wandering and aimless ramble into unknown fields of speculation.
"Therefore, I've got to make acquaintance with it; it has got to make acquaintance with me. Now some people—French people in particular—go and sit in their tombs and look at their coffins. I've no fancy for that. Let my friends attend to all that after I'm gone, but I've saved a smart sum, and I've no objection to cultivating this monument a little bit while I live."
"Micah," said Mrs. Prymmer, in a curious voice, "what is this monument?"
"And what should it be but a nice healthy widow? What better advertisement does a man want after he's gone than a good sizeable woman walking into the biggest church in town with her eyes cast down and her veil streaming after her? Suppose I'm a stranger in a pew, 'Whose widow is that?' I ask. 'Captain White's.' 'Who was Captain White?' 'Potts's boss down at the sardine factories.' 'How much did he leave?' 'So much.' 'What kind of a fellow was he?' 'Not bad.' 'Tombs and gravestones, that's a fine-looking widow. You'll not forget him while she's about.' Do you catch on, Hippolyta?"