's heads to him. The king he reads it and puts it
in his pocket, and says:
"Poor William, afflicted as he is, his HEART'S aluz right. Asks me to
invite everybody to come to the funeral--wants me to make 'em all
welcome. But he needn't a worried--it was jest what I was at."
Then he weaves along again, perfectly ca'm, and goes to dropping in his
funeral orgies again every now and then, just like he done before. And
when he done it the third time he says:
"I say orgies, not because it's the common term, because it ain't
--obsequies bein' the common term--but because orgies is the right term.
Obsequies ain't used in England no more now--it's gone out. We say
orgies now in England. Orgies is better, because it means the thing
you're after more exact. It's a word that's made up out'n the Greek
ORGO, outside, open, abroad; and the Hebrew JEESUM, to plant, cover up;
hence inTER. So, you see, funeral orgies is an open er public funeral."
He was the WORST I ever struck. Well, the iron-jawed man he laughed
right in his face. Everybody was shocked. Everybody says, "Why,
DOCTOR!" and Abner Shackleford says:
"Why, Robinson, hain't you heard the news? This is Harvey Wilks."
The king he smiled eager, and shoved out his flapper, and says:
"Is it my poor brother's dear good friend and physician? I--"
"Keep your hands off of me!" says the doctor. "YOU talk like an
Englishman, DON'T you? It's the worst imitation I ever heard. YOU Peter
Wilks's brother! You're a fraud, that's what you are!"
Well, how they all took on! They crowded around the doctor and tried to
quiet him down, and tried to explain to him and tell him how Harvey 'd
showed in forty ways that he WAS Harvey, and knowed everybody by name,
and the names of the very dogs, and begged and BEGGED him not to hurt
Harvey's feelings and the poor girl's feelings, and all that. But it
warn't no use; he stormed right along, and said any man that pretended to
be an Englishman and couldn't imitate the lingo no better than what he
did was a fraud and a liar. The poor girls was hanging to the king and
crying; and all of a sudden the doctor ups and turns on THEM. He says:
"I was your father's friend, and I'm your friend; and I warn you as a
friend, and an honest one that wants to protect you and keep you out of
harm and trouble, to turn your backs on that scoundrel and have nothing
to do with him, the ignorant tramp, with his idiotic Greek and Hebrew, as
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