The Fiend's Delight by Ambrose Bierce
page 33 of 143 (23%)
page 33 of 143 (23%)
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Orl flesh are gras!"
The ridiculous part of the story is that the lady did not wait to summon the Coroner, but took charge of the remains herself; and in dragging them toward the bed she exploded into her face a shotgun, which had been cunningly contrived to discharge by a string connected with the body. Thus was she punished for an infraction of the law. The next day the particulars were told me by the facetious Coroner himself, whose jury had just rendered a verdict of accidental drowning in both cases. I don't know when I have enjoyed a heartier laugh. The Optimist, and What He Died Of. One summer evening, while strolling with considerable difficulty over Russian Hill, San Francisco, Mr. Grile espied a man standing upon the extreme summit, with a pensive brow and a suit of clothes which seemed to have been handed down through a long line of ancestors from a remote Jew peddler. Mr. Grile respectfully saluted; a man who has any clothes at all is to him an object of veneration. The stranger opened the conversation: "My son," said he, in a tone suggestive of strangulation by the Sheriff, "do you behold this wonderful city, its wharves crowded with the shipping of all nations?" Mr. Grile beheld with amazement. "Twenty-one years ago-alas! it used to be but twenty," and he wiped away a tear--"you might have bought the whole dern thing for a Mexican ounce." |
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