"Horrible!" said I.
"Most horrible!" replied he; "nevertheless, I put that resolve into immediate execution."
"How?" I inquired.
"By transmitting an account of my death to the metropolitan newspapers in these words—'Died, at Antigua, on the 15th March, in the 28th year of his age, Robert Fergusson Daly, Esq., son of the late Thomas Fergusson Daly, Esq., of St. Mary Axe, London.'"
"What earthly purpose could that have answered?"
"You shall hear," said Daly. "About ten days after this announcement, having 'incurred' for a suit of mourning, I proceeded to my friend the upholsterer. Dear man, I recollect his little white bald head peering over his desk in the counting-house as well as if it were but yesterday—in I went—made a bow—up jumped my creditor.
"'Ah, Mr. Daly,' cried he, 'then what I have read in the newspaper is not true!—you are alive and merry.'
"Upon which I, looking as grave as a judge, said with a long-drawn sigh, 'Sir, I see you have fallen into the common mistake.'
"'Mistake, sir,' said he, 'no mistake in the world! Why, I read in the newspapers that you were dead. How those fellows do fib!'
"'In this instance,' I replied, 'they are as true as the tides to the moon—or the needle to the Pole.'