Then he went toward the body, or what there was of it. The clothing was still intact, and so he searched in the pockets, pulling out first of all a marvellous gold watch that had cost eighteen hundred dollars in Geneva. That interested him, of course, and he went on in haste, and found a wallet, with plenty of money, and with some cards in it. They were blurred, but one could still make out the name on them, and the fisherman gave a cry, "Good God! this says Robert van Rensselaer!"
"Who's Robert van Rensselaer?" demanded the other, wonderingly.
"You never heard of him? Why, he's the richest man in the country."
The speaker was gazing down, awe-stricken, at the body; but his companion merely moved away a little. "He smells like the devil, anyhow," said he.
XXXVII
It was not long before the other boat came back to tell of the wreck of the Comet, and of the finding of several more bodies. And so in a few hours the news reached New York, causing another panic in Wall Street, and dreadful grief in the bereaved family of the unfortunate millionnaire. Before night the newspapers reported that the remains (their own phrase!) of Robert van Rensselaer were on their way to the city by special train.
They were received in state, of course; and two days later there was a most solemn and impressive funeral, many columns of description of which I might quote, were it not that this story is too long already. Suffice it to say that the ceremony was held in the great Fifth Avenue Church, and that it was attended by all the wealth and fashion of our metropolis; and that the Reverend Doctor Lettuce Spray preached the most eloquent of all his sermons upon the text, "Blessed are the millionnaires, for they have inherited the earth, and you can't get it away from them."