HIS HTLARIOUS OBSEQUIES

Auckland Star, Volume XXXVI, Issue 12, 14 January 1905, Page 14

HIS HTLARIOUS OBSEQUIES

(COMPLETE SKETCH. ) By Tom P. Morgan. "1 was surprised at certain things abont a funeral procession I met near the turn-ing-mill," said the patent-churn man, who lately had into town. "The driver of the bears" had his hat cocked over his eye and wore a big cigar stueU in the corner of a broad frri". 'J'he occupants of The vehicles that followed seemed pleased with the way things were progressing. Many of the men were smoking, aud in the rearmost waggon I saw a demijohn. Whoso funeral was it? And why " ''Oh, that was Billy Smathers" obsequies. ■ broke in the landlord of the Pruntytown Tavern. "He was a great joker, Bl!ly v.-as—always trettin' oil a good'u ou somebody. Sometimes it was askin' you what It way thai w;is black outside and yellow within and barked like a dog, aud when you couldn't supss it. tellin' you it was a kctt!<? of hasty-puddia". Wheu you sain hesly-ptiridiTi' didn't bark like a dog, he'd say he just pnt that in to make it harder to suess. And then he'd laugh, and laugh, and laugh. "I remember yet. just as well as if it was yesterday, some of his earliest jokes. One or 'em was: 'Which you rather do, kiss Harriet I'eeeher Str>we or the Pope's toe?" That was a long time ago, you see. He was just as gaudy with practical jokes, too. One time he—haw: haw!—held up the hired glrl : s solid feller for two hocrs on a cold night, by pokin' a crowbar out of the second-storey window and hoarsely toreatenin' to shoot him dead. "Billy's pet joke was one that he worked with a pair of stilts about nine feet long. He practised till he could get around firstrate on "eui made a pair of long pants for the etilts, and a set of false whiskers for himself; and yon better believe it jolted belated wayfarers up to meet a thin man fourteen feet or so tall, plrootln* around in the midtfle of the night But one time he cured a feller that was at the point of death with tint quinsy, by glarin , in on him at tlie secotuVstorey window, and remark--1W; **r**ri tacJ fc*x-r-rl' tn a yxjhre flke a

white sepulchre. The sicS man gare a screech, hopped 'most up to the ceilin , , busted his quinsy, and got well. "Billy used to have the biggest fan, though, springin' his stilt joke on them charcoal-burners from up Squa.ntrnm way. Yon know how they are: work like cusses burnin' the charcoal, and then take it to town, and come home in the middle of the night as drunk as Injuns. It used to tickle BiUy to walk up. fourteen feet tall, and boiler down into the cart, and see 'em go into fits. But one night there- was a new feller among charcoalers —little but chock full of wildcat. Billy came up behind the little mans cart, hollered down at him: •Prepare to die! - and at the same time Billy prepared to laush. " 'Who are you?' Says the eharcoaler. " 'I am the devil!' roars Billy. "Just about then the little man swarmed right up the back of the cart, sailed out, and lit on Billy. A man on stilts ain't got no show, and over they went backwards with a. force that nearly busted Billy s crust. It was ten days before ho was out again, and the first thing lif di< l was *° chop up them stilts. He said the last thin.? he remembered was the little wolf of a charcoal-burner sayin': 'If you arc the devil, I'm in a deril of a fix, an' if you ain't the devil, yon're in a deril of a fix.' And then he went on beatin' Billy like v tom-tom. "Well, Billy's gone now —or at least it sorter 'pears thai he is. He had a kind of sinkin' spe-Il about two years ago, and was generally estimated to be dead; but ho came to himself in the midst of the funeral, and riz up. nnd nearly laaghed himself to death at the way tbr> folks tried to break their necks get tin' out of there. But this time they are ready for him either way. If he don't come to befor-; they get him burled they'll have the lauch on him; and if ht; does, they are loaded up to show him that they knew it all the time. "Looks considerable like rain off to the strath-west, don't it?' .