“I am quite upset, really I am. This is an iniquitous world—a world of beastly sorrow and sin, by Jove!” “What is the trouble now, Mr. Comstock?” I asked. “Why, my dear lady, my dear old friend Beebe is lying dead, and I’m trying to have him buried decently; but really I can’t get a soul interested—the beastly cads. Ah, but it is a long story, my dear lady, and I fear I will bore you. At any rate, if you will listen, I will tell you a part of it. I shall be obliged to speak plainly, and, really, I fear that you will not like to hear of such things. “Beebe is not, or rather was not, an ordinary person. Poor old Beebe! He was a poet, you know, and all that sort of a thing, and a perfect fiend for sport, poor old chap! He came to the Isthmus in the ‘early days’ to get away from his wife, who, I believe, was a perfect Tartar. She made his life miserable, poor chap, by always enjoining economy upon him, and bothering him about practical things. For a chap of his temperament, “White?” “Oh, dear, no. She was one of those brown-skinned charmers who make chaps of every clime forget their home ties, their country, and, often as not, their God. Well, as I said, poor old Beebe fell in love with her, and right there began his downfall. The creature ruled him with a rod of iron. He gave her all the money he could get. He actually gave her diamonds, by Jove! and the Lord knows what else. Well, the hussy wasn’t satisfied, but wanted more dinero, et cetera, and poor old Beebe was at his wits’ end. Finally, she had the beastly cheek to threaten to leave him for a bounder of a Frenchman who sold sausages, or something of that sort. The wretched creature! In short, she bluffed the poor chap, for he came to me one day and said that he could not bear the thought of giving “Well, Beebe visited all his friends in town, and ‘touched’ each one for more or less, according to his salary. In this way he realized quite a sum, which he gave to the girl, who immediately turned it over to the beastly sausage chap, and began clamoring for more. Now, poor old Beebe wrote to his friends in the States, and, although he hated to tell a lie (truthful chap, Beebe), he, of course, had to say that he was ill. Well, at any rate, he received quite a goodly sum from home. His wife was good enough to send him twenty pounds. I presume she felt sorry for having been so severe with him in the days that were gone. Now, Beebe took to drinking harder (very fond of B. and S., was Beebe), and the girl left him for the bounder. Also, his friends, at about this time, began to dun him for the money he had borrowed. The poor fellow was simply bothered to death, and drank more and more every day; and finally lost his position. What, ill-luck? The poor chap had at last reached the lowest depths of poverty and degradation, and would probably have died long ago had he not fallen in with another girl. This one was a different sort. Good-hearted, and all that, you know. Not a bit mercenary. “Well, he’s dead now, poor fellow, and there are none so poor as to do him reverence; but he was a good sort, a very clever chap, and many the Scotch we’ve had together. But I won’t moralize, my dear lady. He drank more and more. Heaven knows where he got it. I believe there must be some special Providence, whose business it is to see that the thirsty never languish too long. Beebe began to neglect his personal appearance, and, his liver being a little congested, his nose became a bit red. It altered his looks horribly. I felt quite sorry for him. He had been warned often enough by the district physicians (very humane chaps), but poor Beebe took no notice, not caring, I presume. At last he got in the habit of drinking some beastly stuff they sell in the Chino shops. Last night he took an overdose of the poison. He died to-day at 12 o’clock. I have been trying to get him an American flag for a winding sheet. Did I get one? No, indeed, my dear lady. “Would you like to come with me and view the remains? Then we’d better go right along, or those bounders will have buried the poor chap. You will buy him a winding sheet? How good of you! Poor old Beebe would have appreciated that.” Beebe’s kind-hearted friend led me through many winding streets to a most dismal neighborhood in that region of the city which, until lately, had been known as the underworld; and in a dingy tenement above a Chino shop I was shown the remains of “poor Beebe.” In a cheap, rough coffin, laid upon boards stretched between two barrels, he looked Meantime, several persons came into the room and stood about as though waiting for something to happen. There were several swagger black men in long black coats, carrying tall hats, and some white men rather shabbily dressed, very seedy and with very red noses—derelicts in this black Sargasso Sea. One of the negroes brought a box and asked me to sit down, but the black women looked upon me with evident displeasure, plainly showing that they regarded me as an intruder, until a boy arrived with the shroud for the dead man. Then they Judging from Beebe’s face, there was no doubt but what he had descended from a long line of New England ancestors, all of whom had a fine scorn, doubtless, for everything Irish. The white shroud was now wrapped about “poor Beebe,” and then, ye shades of the Pilgrim Fathers! the coffin was draped in the folds of what once had been Erin’s glory. “The harp that once through Tara’s halls, The soul of music shed,” quoted Mr. Comstock, as he arranged the folds so that the golden harp would show in bold relief on Beebe’s breast. It was the only touch of respectability in Beebe’s last earthly trappings; and a drop A black clergyman now arriving, a hush fell upon the little gathering. The black men tiptoed into positions behind the white mourners, who tried their best to look solemn. The minister (“a blooming Dissenter,” whispered Mr. Comstock to me), carrying a prayer-book and a Bible, advanced in a most reverential manner. He opened the Bible and read as follows: “Malachi, fourth chapter, first verse: ‘For behold, the day cometh that shall burn as an oven, and all the proud, yea, and all that do wickedness, shall be stubble, and the day that cometh shall burn them up, saith the Lord of Hosts; that it shall leave them neither root nor branch.’” He then repeated the regular burial service. As he raised his eyes from the prayer-book they fell upon a woman who hung over the silent form of Beebe. In her arms she held a pretty, golden-haired child, whose wistful blue eyes looked in wonderment at the motley group about her. “Who is this?” asked the minister, closing the book and pointing to the child. “This is the woman and child,” answered Mr. Comstock. “Do you mean Some of the white men turned pale at this, and several of the women sank upon their knees and cried aloud for mercy. It appeared that “poor Beebe” was not the only one who was married, “so to speak.” “Let us pray,” said the minister. The men fell upon their knees and echoed the words which fell from the lips of God’s anointed. While they were praying, the black woman cried aloud, and I noticed * * * Not long ago, during a conversation with Beebe’s faithful friend, he confided in me that the clergyman’s religious sincerity had not only caused him to alter his own mode of life, but had changed his ethical view of Beebe’s conduct to his wife and friends and to his unfortunate child. |