Village books

'We had a wind-up champagne supper that night, and next day Claude and I
packed up and went off to nurse Millet through his last days and keep
busybodies out of the house and send daily bulletins to Carl in Paris for
publication in the papers of several continents for the information of a
waiting world. The sad end came at last, and Carl was there in time to
help in the final mournful rites.
'You remember that great funeral, and what a stir it made all over the
globe, and how the illustrious of two worlds came to attend it and
testify their sorrow. We four--still inseparable--carried the coffin,
and would allow none to help. And we were right about that, because it
hadn't anything in it but a wax figure, and any other coffin-bearers
would have found fault with the weight. Yes, we same old four, who had
lovingly shared privation together in the old hard times now gone for
ever, carried the cof--'
'Which four?'
'We four--for Millet helped to carry his own coffin. In disguise, you
know. Disguised as a relative--distant relative.


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