surprise, and then, regaining her composure, she said to Myers,

"Isn't this a new kind of an idea--dead people coming around when
common decency requires them to keep quiet?"

"It's altogether wrong," said Myers. "If I was dead, I'd lie still and
quit wandering about over the face of the earth."

"Maria, don't you know me?" asked the major, indignantly.

"I used to know you when you were alive; but now that you're gone, I
don't expect to recognize you until we meet in a better world."

"But, Maria, I am not dead. You certainly see that I am alive."

"Not dead! Didn't you send word to me that you were? Am I to refuse
to believe my own husband? The life insurance company says you are
deceased; the lodge says so; the coroner officially asserts the fact.
What am I to do? The evidence is all one way."

"But you _shall_ accept me as alive!" shouted the major, in a rage.

"Mr. Myers," said the widow, calmly, "hadn't we better send for the
undertaker to come and bury these remains?"

"Look here!" said Myers. "I'm the last man to do a dead friend an
injury, but I ain't going to have any departed spirit coming in here
and giving this lady hysterics. You pack up and go back, and stay
there, or I'll have you hustled into a tomb quicker'n lightning. Hurry
up now; don't stop to think about it!"