PHILIP.--"But I've been to a good deal of expense about her. Her clothes
have cost me no end of money, and there are all our new children
besides. Children, let me tell you, are a great deal more expensive now
than they were in your day. Now, I'll give you twenty thousand dollars,
and your wife, and we'll call it square."

ENOCH.--"No, sir. I don't want the wife, and I insist on more than
twenty thousand dollars. I've got you entirely in my power, and you know
it. I'll come down to forty thousand dollars, but not a cent less. Draw
a check on the bank, or I'll draw a revolver on you. Be quick about it,
too, for my hereditary insanity may develop itself at any moment."

PHILIP.--"Well, if I must, I must. Here is your money. How did you leave
things at--well, at the place you came from? Everybody well, I hope?"

ENOCH.--"There were no people, and consequently nothing to drink there.
Don't speak of the wretched place. Thanks for the check. Hope you'll
find your wife satisfactory. Let this be a warning to you, not to marry
a widow another time, unless you have a sure thing. Don't believe her
when she says her husband is dead, unless you have him dug up, and
personally inspect his bones. Thank you! I _will_ take another drink
since you insist upon it. Here's luck! You'll agree with me that this is
the best day's work I have ever done. Good-by. I'm off to Chicago."

Now, would not that be the way in which "ENOCH" would have acted had he
been a practical business man? You see the play thus altered is
eminently probable, not to say realistic. I have several more improved
catastrophes, which, if substituted for the present ending of some of
our more recent popular plays, would render them quite perfect. _Hamlet_