COL. SLEWTHER'S FUNERAL.

Auckland Star, Volume XXXVIII, Issue 244, 12 October 1907, Page 14

COL. SLEWTHER'S FUNERAL.

(By MAX ADELER.) "800-00-00-oom! Boom." I knew Col. Slewther's laboratory would go us some day, and it did. He was always fooling in there with some kind of explosive compound, trying to work out new fulminating powders, ex-tra-strong varieties of uitro-glycerirp?, aud so forth. And so nobody in the neighbourhood was ranch surprised on that Saturday morning when the explosion occurred, and the shed was blown into ten million pieces. The painful thing about it was that none o£ the fragments of Col. Slewther could be I found. His widow had not even a shred j of him to weep over; and there seemed to be no chance for a funeral. However, on Sunday morning, Mrs. Slewther's hired girl picked up a fresh-lookin.' bone in tbe front yard, and she suggested to her mistress that it might possibly be a portion of the late colonel's framework. The [ widow took kindly to the idea. Her aunt j and her clergyman asserted that it bore a very suspicious resemblance to a roast beef bone, but Mrs. Slewther was obstinate. She I sent for Toombs, the undertaker, and made all the arrangements for a funeral, the bone to represent the lamented colonel. Mrs. Slewther cried all the way to the cemetery and all the way Dack. On the following day the hired girl came in with another bone, evidently a piece of the leg bone, which she said had fallen iv the back yard. Upon examining It, Mrs. Slewther declared that she recognised it as a bit o£ the colonel, although her auut aud the minister both urged that it might possibly have come from the butcher's. And so Mr. Toombs was sent for hurriedly 7 and arrangements were made for further obsequies. They say that the anguish of Mrs. Slewther, in the carriage, as they went to and from the burying ground, was simply agonising, tl was only by strenuous exertion and continued use of the smelling salts that her aunt kept her from going intt> convulsions. But when she got home she became calmer, and her aunt felt that she was more resigned. That was on Friday. On the next Monday, wash-day, the hired girl came in with still another bone, which she said had just fallen on the roof of the smokehouse. Mrs. Slewther's auut scoffed at the idea that it had belonged to the colonel; she said it had evidently come out of a piece of corned beef. But Mrs. Slewther said something whispered to her heart that this was an atom of the colonel, and she thought it safe always to trust the instincts of affection. So Toombs was summoned, and be rang the front doorbell with a chuckle, it seemed to him likely that Col. Strewthcr's funeral would afford him a permanent income. Perhaps he might pass it ou to his children. The ceremony was not so heartrending as those that preceded it. Mrs Slewther sat back in the carriage and cried, and her aunt had the cork out of the smelling bottle, but the widow had only a few hysterical symptoms. On the way home a man sat on a fence as the procession passed, with his hat over his eves He said to a person standing near him: "WhGese funeral is that?" "A man named Slewther. Blown up. This Is the third funeral. They find a bit of him every day." That night Mrs Slewther was awakened by the noise of a terrific rnmpns in the back yard. She flew to the window and .threw up _c each She heard a familiar voice saying:

"Take that, and that, and that, you old coffin-hammering slouch! I'll teach yon to come around here palming off yonr cow bones as the remains of a decent man! Take that, and that, you funeral outcast!" Mrs Slew— er put on her wrapper, and rushed downstairs. "Is that you, Wilberforce, darling?" she asked, almost In a shriek. "Certainly it is," said the colonel. "Ton see I'm not dead at all. I was called away unexpectedly to Baltimore tne very day the explosion occurred, and I forgot to telegraph you. Here 1 am safe and well." . "And who is that other man?" "That? Why that's Toombs. Toombs, the undertaker. He's been tossing bones over in the yard for two weeks, and bribing the servant girl to take them to yon. 1 watched for him to-night, and caught him putting a jawbone of a sheep on the crotch of the apple tree, and so I thumped him." I will draw a veil over the scene that followed when the happy pair entered the house, and rejoiced over each ether. Toombs' bills are unpaid, and he' thinks maybe he had better not sue for them.