Grant. "I'd like to see you try it."
Then the two disconsolate widowers engaged in a hand-to-hand combat; and, after tussling a while in the snow, the mourners pulled them apart, just as Mr. Miller was about to insist upon his wife's virtues by biting off Mr. Grant's nose.
When they got home, Mr. Grant tied crape upon all his window-shutters to show how deeply he mourned; and, as Miller knew that his grief for Mrs. Miller was deeper, he not only decorated his shutters, but he fixed five yards of black bombazine on the bell-pull, and dressed his whole family in mourning. Then Grant determined that his duty to the departed was not to let himself be beaten by a man who couldn't feel any genuine sorrow: so he sewed a black flag on his lightning-rod, and festooned the front of his house with black alpaca.
Then Miller became excited; and he expressed his sense of bereavement by painting his dwelling black, and by putting up a monument to Mrs. Miller in his front-yard. Grant thereupon stained his yellow horse with lampblack, tied crape to his cow's horn, daubed his dog with ink, and began to wipe his nose on a black handkerchief. As soon as Miller saw these proceedings, he spread a layer of charcoal all over his front-yard, he assumed a black shirt, he corked the faces of his family when they went to church, and he hired a colored man to stand on his steps and cry for twelve hours every day. Just as Grant was about to see this, and go it one better, he encountered Miss Lang, a young lady from the city; and in a couple of weeks they were engaged. Then he began to take in the evidences of his grief; and this made Miller so mad, that he went around and proposed to Miss Jones, an old maid who never had an offer before. She accepted him on the spot; and they were married the day before Grant's wedding, which so disgusted him that he would have given up Lang if she hadn't threatened him with a suit for breach of promise. There is peace between the two families now; but, when Mrs. Miller gets on the rampage sometimes, Mr. Miller mourns for his first wife more than ever.
A LAUGHING PHILOSOPHER.
Admiring my flowers, sir? P'raps you'd step inside the gate, and walk round my little place? It ain't big, but there's plenty of variety,—violets and cabbages, roses and artichokes. Any one that didn't care for flowers 'ud be sure to find beauty in them young spring onions. People's ideas differ very much, there ain't a doubt of it. One man's very happy over a glass of whiskey and water, and another thinks every thing 'ud go straight in this 'ere world if we all drank tea and lemonade. And it's right enough: it keeps things even. We should have the world a very one-sided affair if everybody pulled the same way. Philosopher, am I? Well, I dunno. I've got a theory to be sure—every one has nowadays; and mine is, that there is a joke to be found in every mortal thing if only we look in the right place for it. But some people don't know how to look for it. Why, sir, if you'll believe it, I was talking to a man yesterday that couldn't see any thing to laugh at in the naval demonstration.
Am I independent? Well, I makes money by my fruit and vegetables, if that's what you mean. But there's so many ways of being independent. One man marries a woman with £20,000 a year, and calls that independence. Another votes on the strongest side, and calls that being independent. One takes up every new-fangled idea that comes out, and says he's independent. Some calls impudence independence. There's not a name as fits so many different articles. No! I've never bin married. Somehow, I don't think married men see the fun in every thing same as single ones. I don't mean to be disrespectful to the ladies, but I do think they enjoy a good cry more than a good laugh. Was I ever in love? and did I laugh then? Why, yes, never laughed heartier in my life. It's a good many years ago now. I was living in lodgings down Clerkenwell way, and the landlady's daughter was as pretty a creature as ever you see, bright and cheery, like a robin, when first I knew her. But, by and by, she grew pale and peaky,—used to go about the house without singing, and had such big, sad-looking eyes. Her home wasn't a particularly happy one, for her mother was a nagger. Perhaps you've never come across a woman of that pertikler character. Well, then, you should say double the prayers of ordinary people; for you've much to be thankful for. I never looked at her without feeling that her husband must have been very happy indeed when he got to heaven. I sometimes think, sir, that women of this sort might be made use of, and prisons, and all other kind of punishment, done away with: perhaps, though, the lunatic asylums 'ud get too full.
Well, I grew to be quite intimate with Bessie; and one evening, I don't know how it was, she told me all her troubles. She was engaged to a young man; and her mother wouldn't consent to them marrying, and was always worrying her to break it off. I asked her if there were any thing against him. Nothing, except that her mother had taken a dislike to him: he wasn't very strong, but he was the best, cleverest, dearest fellow that ever lived. All the time she was talking I felt a gnawing sort of pain somewhere in my inside. First, I thought I must be hungry; but, when I came to eat, all my food seemed to get in my throat, and stick there. This won't do, old fellow, thinks I: there must be a joke to be got out of it somewhere. So I set to consider; and there, clear enough, it was. Why, the joke 'ud be to let Bessie marry her young man, and see the pretty cheeks grow round and pink again. But how to do it, there was the rub. I began to cultivate the old lady's society with a view to finding out her weak point: for, being a woman, of course she had a weak point; and, being a very ugly woman, what do you think it was? Why, vanity, to be sure. I soon noticed a change in her. She took her hair out of paper every day, instead of only on Sundays, as she had been used to do; and she put on a clean cap sometimes, and smirked whenever I passed her. Why, here's a bigger joke than I bargained for, thinks I! While I've been studying the woman to find out her weak point, she thinks I've been admiring her. But I soon saw what use I could make of this. I went down into the kitchen when she wasn't busy,—I knew it would be rather too hot other times,—and I got talking about Bessie. "It's strange," I says, "that a fine-looking girl like that shouldn't have a sweetheart. Things was different when you was younger, I'll be bound."
"As for that," says she, "Bessie has a sweetheart; but I don't approve of him. He's not exactly the sort of man I expected for her."