“Now, son,” said the Plunger, his tone betraying the satire he evidently tried to conceal, “don’t be so hard on Tom. He is doing the best he knows how. What were your thoughts before you remembered? Tom has done for me this morning, more than my son (and he has been a subject) ever offered to do for me.”
“The reporter, no doubt, was born to a higher plane in his first existence, than your son,” curtly replied Juan, “and that accounts for his natural kindness of heart. The curse of having to live through three existences in punishment, on account of the house in which one lived his first existence being so full of sin, did not fall to his lot. Good morning, gentlemen, good morning; my wife and I are going to the auditorium. If we tarry longer, we will not get in. I wish you and Tom, Papa, much luck.” Juan bowed very low, and together with his wife, walked very rapidly toward the auditorium.
The third and last evening of the great celebration, in honor of the seventh anniversary of the marriage of the President of the United States, Miguel Lehumada, and Helen Hinckley, was at hand.
Sharply at eight o’clock, the house already filled to its utmost for an hour or more, arose at a signal given by the master of ceremonies, to witness the arrival of the President, his wife, and their beautiful twins, a boy and a girl six years old, moving through the air. When they took the seats assigned for them on the rostrum, the audience sat down. After the President’s address of welcome, there was an eloquent discourse by the great seer, Julio Murillo, upon the “Divine in Man,” in which he spoke of the discovery of “Memory Fluid,” the great destroyer of germs, without any but good effects upon the physical, making man in his physical state cognizant of all his past, and creating in him a desire for a knowledge of the Great Cause.
At the close of his remarkable address, he spoke of the strange effect of Ebony Fluid upon animal matter, after the spirit had taken its flight. A screen was removed from the side of the rostrum, which disclosed to view the ebonized bodies of Francisco R. Cantu, Father Hernandez, Rev. J. T. Note, Marriet Motuble, and last, of the little child, Catalina Martinet.
These bodies had been in the National Museum for some months, but had never been unveiled for inspection. The history of all the persons, whose bodies, black as midnight and as hard as flint, stood before them, was familiar to everybody, and were objects of very great interest in consequence.
The two children of the President ran from one ebonized body to the other, while Julio Murillo explained which had been occupied respectively by the five persons who had made many pages of history teem with interest.
The little girl was a beautiful brown-eyed child, retiring and quiet and a very striking likeness of the President.
The boy, much taller than the girl, was aggressive, and quite the contrast of his sister Helen. His hair was light brown and curly, and his eyes were blue. Little Miguey, as he was called, after his famous father, was strikingly unlike either of his parents.
His great talent for music had been cultivated by the best masters, and at the tender age of six years he could handle skillfully any musical instrument; but his fondness for the horn was shown by the masterly way in which he played upon it.