act of Widower Britt to his discredit and to make him out a renegade of
a relict. He did go through all the accepted motions as a mourner. He
took on "something dreadful" at the funeral. He placed in the cemetery
lot a granite statue of himself, in a frock coat of stone and holding a
stone plug hat in the hook of the elbow. That statue cost Tasper Britt
rising sixteen hundred dollars--and after he dyed his beard and bought
the top piece of hair, the satirists of Egypt were unkind enough to say
that he had set his stone image out in the graveyard to scare Hittie if
she tried to arise and spy on his new carryings-on.

Mr. Britt had continued to be a consistent mourner, according to the
old-fashioned conventions.

When he arose in the dawn of the day with which the tale begins and
unwound a towel from his jowls--for the new Magnetic Hair Restorer had
an ambitious way of touching up the pillow-slip with color--he beheld
a memento, composed of assembled objects, "sacred to the memory of
Mehitable." In a frame, under glass, on black velvet were these items:
silver plate from casket, hair switch, tumbler and spoon with which
the last medicine had been administered, wedding ring and marriage
certificate; photograph in center. The satirists had their comment for
that memento--they averred that it was not complete without the two dish
towels to which Hittie had been limited.

Mr. Britt inspected the memento and sighed; that was before he had
touched up his beard with a patent dye comb.

After he had set the scratch wig on his glossy poll and had studied
himself in the mirror he looked more cheerful and pulled a snapshot
photograph from a bureau drawer, gazed on it and sighed again. It was