Epitaphs are cheap, and they do a poor chap a world of good after he is dead, especially if he had hard luck while he was alive.

I wish they were used more.

Now I don't complain, but confidentially I DO think it was a little shabby in my descendants to give me nothing but this old slab of a gravestone---and all the more that there isn't a compliment on it.

It used to have 'GONE TO HIS JUST REWARD' on it, and I was proud when I first saw it, but by and by I noticed that whenever an old friend of mine came along he would hook his chin on the railing and pull a long face and read along down till he came to that, and then he would chuckle to himself and walk off, looking satisfied and comfortable.

So I scratched it off to get rid of those fools.