an' stopped 'im in a offhand way and
axed him what luck.

"'Luck hell,' says he--he used the word, I didn't--'I talked to that
dried-up old mummy,' says he, 'fer an hour jest to find that he was
settin' thar all the time figurin' in his head about a speculation I'd
made 'im think of while I was talkin' to him.'

"The agent was so mad that he wouldn't explain what the speculation was,
but I heard it that evenin'. Hank Bradley was tellin' it to a crowd at
the post-office. You know Hank makes all manner of sport of his uncle
behind the old skunk's back. He told a tale, too, that I'd never heard.
It seems that old Welborne's mother-in-law died, and Welborne went to a
undertaker to buy 'er coffin. He picked out a fifty-dollar one, and
talked and talked till he finally got the pore devil down to forty. Then
he said:

"'You'd sell two for seventy-five, wouldn't you?'

"'I reckon I might,' the undertaker said, 'but you only want one.'

"'I'll need another 'fore many months,' old Welborne said. 'My
father-in-law won't last long. I'll take one now at thirty-seven-fifty
and the other when the time comes.'"

Henley laughed, despite his displeasure. "That is just like him," he
said, "and I believe every word of it."

"His present speculation takes the rag off'n the bush," said Wrinkle.
"The talk of the gravestone man started him to thinkin' about what thar
might be in that line for him, and he recalled that he owned ten acres
of ground on a rise in the edge of town which he had bought at a
tax-sale for twenty-five dollars. The very next mornin' he had a feller
diggin' post-holes an' puttin' a fence around it with a main gate that
had a big curvin' sign over it with the words 'Sunnyside Cemetery' on
it, and I'm told that he has been all over town tellin' folks that the
_old_ graveyard is too low and soggy to be half decent, and that his'n
was a great improvement. He intimated, too, that nobody but blue-bloods
could git the'r names enrolled, and thar has been a powerful scramble
for places, even by folks that have no idea of dyin' yet a while. You
see, Alf, I got a good many particulars at fust hand, for he was out
here to see Hettie in regard to accommodations for Dick, and I heard all
that was said. Accordin' to Welborne thar is to be a wholesale movin'
right away and choice quarters will be scarce, right when they are in
the most demand."

"I suppose she--I suppose my wife--"

"Yes, she bit, Alf, and took a full mouthful