“Do you feel that?” he said tenderly.
“Wrogd gdo gurk!”
“Spit!” With thee conversing, I forget all time.
“I suppose,” said George Graves thoughtfully, “the gold they use in people’s teeth is worth a lot of money.”
“Yes,” said Eugene, finding the idea attractive, “if only one person in ten has gold fillings that would be ten million in the United States alone. You can figure on five dollars’worth each, can’t you?”
“Easy!” said George Graves. “More than that.” He brooded lusciously a moment. “That’s a lot of money,” he said.
In the office of the Rogers-Malone Undertaking Establishment the painful family of death was assembled, “Horse” Hines, tilted back in a swivel chair, with his feet thrust out on the broad window— ledge, chatted lazily with Mr. C. M. Powell, the suave silent partner. How sleep the brave, who sink to rest. Forget not yet.
“There’s good money in undertaking,” said George Graves. “Mr. Powell’s well off.”
Eugene’s eyes were glued on the lantern face of “Horse” Hines. He beat the air with a convulsive arm, and sank his fingers in his throat.
“What’s the matter?” cried George Graves.
“They shall not bury me alive,” he said.
“You can’t tell,” George Graves said gloomily. “It’s been known to happen. They’ve dug them up later and found them turned over on their faces.”
Eugene shuddered. “I think,” he suggested painfully, “they’re supposed to take out your insides when they embalm you.”
“Yes,” said George Graves more hopefully, “and that stuff they use would kill you anyway. They pump you full of it.”
With shrunken heart, Eugene considered. The ghost of old fear, that had been laid for years, walked forth to haunt him.
In his old fantasies of death he had watched his living burial, had foreseen his waking life-in-death, his slow, frustrated efforts to push away the smothering flood of earth until, as a drowning swimmer claws the air, his mute and stiffened fingers thrust from the ground a call for hands.
