Mr. BUMSTEAD, affected to tears, interspersed with nods, by his reading, has barely time to mutter that such a wife was too good to live long in these days, when the servant announces that "MCLAUGHLIN has come, sir."
JOHN MCLAUGHLIN, who now enters, is a stone-cutter and mason, much employed in patching dilapidated graves and cutting inscriptions, and popularly known in Bumsteadville, on account of the dried mortar perpetually hanging about him, as "Old Mortarity." He is a ricketty man, with a chronic disease called bar-roomatism, and so very grave-yardy in his very 'Hic' that one almost expects a jacet to follow it as a matter of course.
"JOHN MCLAUGHLIN," says Judge SWEENEY, handing him the paper with the Epitaph, "there is the inscription for the stone."
"I guess I can get it all on, sir," says MCLAUGHLIN. "Your servant, Mr. BUMSTEAD."
"Ah, JOHN MCLAUGHLIN, how are you?" says Mr. BUMSTEAD, his hand with the tumbler vaguely wandering toward where the bowl formerly stood. "By the way, JOHN MCLAUGHLIN, how came you to be called 'Old Mortarity'? It has a drunken sound, JOHN MCLAUGHLIN, like one of Sir WALTER SCOTT'S characters disguised in liquor."
"Never you mind about that," says MCLAUGHLIN. "I carry the keys of the Bumsteadville[1] churchyard vaults, and can tell to an atom, by a tap of my trowel, how fast a skeleton is dropping to dust in the pauper burial-ground. That's more than they can do who call me names." With which ghastly speech JOHN MCLAUGHLIN retires unceremoniously from the room.
Judge SWEENEY now attempts a game of backgammon with the man of taste, but becomes discouraged after Mr. BUMSTEAD has landed the dice in his vest-opening three times running and fallen heavily asleep in the middle of a move. An ensuing potato salad is made equally discouraging by Mr. BUMSTEAD'S persistent attempts to cut up his handkerchief in it. Finally, Mr. BUMSTEAD[2] wildly finds his way to his feet, is plunged into profound gloom at discovering the condition of his hat, attempts to leave the room by each of the windows and closets in succession, and at last goes tempestuously through the door by accident.
[To be Continued.]