So the party of reception was arranged, and the invitations hurried out.
At about half an hour before dinner there was a sound in the air of Bumsteadville as of a powerful stump-speaker addressing a mass-meeting in the distance; rapidly intensifying to stentorian phrases, such as—"provide for your miserable surviving offspring"—"lower rates than any other company"—"full amount cheerfully paid upon hearing of your death"—until a hack appeared coming down the crossroad descending into Gospeler's Gulch, and stopped at the Gospeler's door. As the faint driver, trembling with nervous debility from great excess of deathly admonition addressed to him, through the front window of his hack, all the way from the ferry, checked his horses in one feeble gasp of remaining strength, the Reverend OCTAVIUS stepped forth from the doorway to greet Mr. SCHENCK and the dark-complexioned, sharp-eyed young brother and sister who came with him.
"Now remember, fellow," said Mr. SCHENCK to the driver, after he had come out of the vehicle, shaking his cane menacingly at him as he spoke, "I've warned you, in time, to prepare for death, and given you a Schedule of our rates to read to your family. If you should die of apoplexy in a week, as you probably will, your wife must pick rags, and your children play a harp and fiddle. Dream of it, think of it, dissolute man, and take a Policy in the Boreal."
As the worn-out hackman, too despondent at thought of his impending decease and family-bankruptcy to make any other answer than a groan, drove wretchedly away, the genial Mr. SCHENCK hoarsely introduced the young PENDRAGONS to the Gospeler, and went with them after the latter into the house.
The Reverend OCTAVIUS SIMPSON, with dire forebodings of the discomfiture of his dear old nut-cracker of a mother, did the honors of a general introduction with a perfect failure of a smile; and, thenceforth, until dinner was over, Mr. SCHENCK was the Egyptian festal skeleton that continually reminded the banqueters of their latter ends.
"Great Heavens! what signs of the seeds of the tomb do I not see all around me here," observed Mr. SCHENCK, in a deep base voice, as he helped himself to more codfish. "Here is my friend, Mr. SIMPSON, withering under our very eyes with Dyspepsia. In Mr. BUMSTEAD'S manly eye you can perceive Congestion of the Brain. General Debility marked the venerable Mrs. SIMPSON for its own. Miss POTTS and MAGNOLIA can bloom and eat caramels now; but what will be their anguish when malignant Small Pox rages, as it surely must, next month! Mr. DROOD and MONTGOMERY are rejoicing in the health and thin legs of youth; but how many lobster salads are there between them and fatal Cholera Morbus? As for Miss ELIZABETH CADY CAROWTHERS, there, her Skeleton is already coming through at the shoulders."—"Oh, my friends!" exclaimed the ghastly Mr. SCHENCK, with beautiful enthusiasm, "Insure while yet, there is time; that the kindred, or friends, whom you will all leave behind, probably within the next three months, may have something to keep them from the Poor-House, or, its dread alternative—Crime!" He considerately paused until the shuddering was over, and then added, with melting softness—"I'll leave a few of our Schedules with you."
When, at last, this boon-companion said that he must go, it was surprising to see with what passionate cordiality everybody helped him off. Mr. BUMSTEAD frenziedly crammed his hat upon his beaming head, and, with one eager blow on the top, drove it far down over his ears; FLORA POTTS and MAGNOLIA thrust each a buckskin glove far up either sleeve; Miss CAROWTHERS frantically stuck one of his overshoes under each arm; Mr. DROOD wildly dragged his coat over his form, without troubling him at all about the sleeves, and breathlessly buttoned it to the neck; and the Reverend OCTAVIUS and MONTGOMERY hurried him forth by the shoulders, as though the house were on fire and he the very last to be snatched from the falling beams.
These latter two then almost ran with him to the livery stable where he was to obtain a hack for the ferry; leaving him in charge of the livery man—who, by the way, he at once frightened into a Boreal Policy, by a few felicitous remarks (while the hack was preparing) upon the curious recent fatality of Heart-Disease amongst middle-aged podgy men with bulbous noses.
(To be Continued.)