The face of the stranger was a round, jolly face, with two little eyes that twinkled and glistened between their fat lids, as if they were very devils for fun; and his whole appearance was cozy and comfortable. His chin was double; his stomach round and plump, with an air of respectability; and he occasionally passed his hand over it, as if to say: ‘Ah ha! beat that who can!’ But notwithstanding his merry look, at this last remark his face grew long; and with a melancholy shake of his head, he pointed to his hat which hung on a peg above him, and was swathed in a broad band of crape, terminating in two stiff skirts projecting from it like a rudder, and giving it the appearance of a corpulent butterfly in mourning, at roost on the wall.
‘Ah!’ said Mr. Kornicker, looking at the hat, ‘that’s it?’
‘Yes,’ replied the stranger, with a deep sigh, ‘that’s it.’
‘Father?’ inquired Mr. Kornicker, nodding significantly toward the hat.
‘Dead?’ inquired Mr. Kornicker.
‘Dead as a hammer.’
‘Was it long or short? consumption or fits?’ asked Mr. Kornicker, drawing up his feet and turning so as to face the stranger, by way of evincing the interest which he felt in his melancholy situation.
The man shook his head, and was so affected that he was troubled with a temporary cold in his head; which, having alleviated by the aid of his handkerchief, he said: ‘Poor woman! She undertook to present me with a fine boy, last week, and it proved too much for her. It exhausted her animal natur’, and she decamped on a sudden. She was a very fine woman—a very fine woman. I always said she was.’
‘And the child?’ inquired Kornicker; ‘I hope it’s well.’