catching him in the coat collar with the handle of his umbrella and
drawing the other toward him hand-over-hand. "It's about time that you
should revert again to the hoary JAMES AKER'S excellent preparation for
the human family.--I'll try it first, myself, to see if it tastes at all
of the cork.

"Ah-h," sighs OLD MORTARITY, after his turn has come and been enjoyed at
last, "that's the kind of Spirits I don't mind being a wrapper to. I
could wrap _them_ up all right."

Reflectively chewing a clove, the Ritualistic organist reclines on the
pauper grave of a former writer for the daily press, and cogitates upon
his companion's leaning to Spiritualism; while the other produces
matches and lights their lanterns.

"Mr. McLAUGHLIN," he solemnly remarks, waving his umbrella at the graves
around, "in this scene you behold the very last of man's individual
being. In this entombment he ends forever. Tremble, J. McLAUGHLIN!
--forever. Soul and Spirit are but unmeaning words, according
to the latest big things in science. The departed Dr. DAVIS SLAVONSKI,
of St. Petersburg, before setting out for the Asylum, proved, by his
Atomic Theory, that men are neatly manufactured of Atoms of matter,
which are continually combining together until they form Man; and then
going through the process of Life, which is but the mechanical effect of
their combination; and then wearing apart again by attrition into the
exhaustion of cohesion called Death; and then crumbling into separate
Atoms of native matter, or dust, again; and then gradually combining
again, as before, and evolving another Man; and Living, and Dying,
again; and so on forever. Thus, and thus only, is Man immortal. You are
made exclusively of Atoms of matter, yourself, JOHN McLAUGHLIN. So am I."