"It is all up with me, I guess," he replied, pausing to get breath between the words; "the doctor says I can't get out of this—I must leave in a day or two."
He spoke in a matter-of-fact way, indicating that he intended to take death, as he had taken life, easy.
"How do you feel about changing worlds, my old friend?"
"I have no say in the matter. I have got to go, and that is all there is of it."
That was all I ever got out of him. He told me he had not been to church for ten years, as "it was not in his line." He did not understand matters of that sort, he said, as his business was running a meat-market. He intended no disrespect to me or to sacred things—this was his way of putting the matter in his simple-heartedness.
"Shall I kneel here and pray with you?" I asked.
"No; you needn't take the trouble, parson," he said, gently; "you see I've got to go, and that's all there is of it. I don't understand that sort of thing—it's not in my, line, you see. I've been in the meat business."
"Excuse me, my old friend, if I ask if you do not, as a dying man, have some thoughts about God and eternity?"
"That's not in my line, and I couldn't do much thinking now any way. It's all right, parson—I've got to go, and Old Master will do right about it."
Thus he died without a prayer, and without a fear, and his case is left to the theologians who can understand it, and to the "Old Master" who will do right.