She grieved to part with a cent, poor creature, for twice in her hard-working life she had known what it was to be hungry, cold, friendless, sick, and without a dollar in the world, and she had a haunting dread of suffering so again.

Well, at last Dan died; and the boys, in testimony of their esteem and respect for him, telegraphed to Mrs.Murphy to know if she would like to have him embalmed and sent home; when you know the usual custom was to dump a poor devil like him into a shallow hole, and then inform his friends what had become of him.

Mrs.

Murphy jumped to the conclusion that it would only cost two or three dollars to embalm her dead husband, and so she telegraphed "Yes." It was at the "wake" that the bill for embalming arrived and was presented to the widow.
She uttered a wild, sad wail that pierced every heart, and said, "Sivinty-foive dollars for stooffin' Dan, blister their sowls! Did thim divils suppose I was goin' to stairt a Museim, that I'd be dalin' in such expinsive curiassities!" The banker's clerk said there was not a dry eye in the house.
THE SCRIPTURAL PANORAMIST--[Written about 1866.] "There was a fellow traveling around in that country," said Mr.
Nickerson, "with a moral-religious show--a sort of scriptural panorama -- and he hired a wooden-headed old slab to play the piano for him.
After the first night's performance the showman says: "'My friend, you seem to know pretty much all the tunes there are, and you worry along first rate.

But then, didn't you notice that sometimes last night the piece you happened to be playing was a little rough on the proprieties, so to speak--didn't seem to jibe with the general gait of the picture that was passing at the time, as it were--was a little foreign to the subject, you know--as if you didn't either trump or follow suit, you understand ?' "'Well, no,' the fellow said; 'he hadn't noticed, but it might be; he had played along just as it came handy.' "So they put it up that the simple old dummy was to keep his eye on the panorama after that, and as soon as a stunning picture was reeled out he was to fit it to a dot with a piece of music that would help the audience to get the idea of the subject, and warm them up like a camp-meeting revival.