Rensselaer Union, Volume 9, Number 45, Rensselaer, Jasper County, 26 July 1877 — A Dismal Joke. [ARTICLE]

A Dismal Joke.

An undertaker is a dismal personage, who works at a dismal trade, associates with dismal company, and he ought not to object to a dismal joke now and then. A well-known undertaker in a city carries with him a cloud of dismal memories. Wherever he passes he chokes laughter, frowns down smiles with his perpetual shadow. He can’t help it; Jt L>n t his fault; ’tis his nature. But an undertaker ought not to object to a dismal joke when he gives the motive. A dead undertaker must be a sorry spectacle Indeed; but one who is almost dead may become a subject of jest and merriment. It is then he begins |o be funny, and a stimulator of fun in others. This quality of an undertaker was exemplified on the Pacific coast the other day. A well .known sarcophagusdealer and hearse-driver ot San Eiancisco. in an effort to forget his dreadful trade, joined a pleasure party in a sea excursion. His presence was, ot course, a cloud on the party, but he couldn’t help it. He had just as much right to be there as anybody, but he made himself responsible tor a prevailing glooril where it was expected ail would be sunshine. A funeral at sea is the most dismal of all things. This particular excursion party did not havq a funeral on the trip, but they had the next thing to it —a wake. The undertaker wLO gloomed around in calm weather, was completely floored in a gale on the return trip. He got dreadfully sea-sick and de-, posited himself on deck with his head resting oh a sack: of potatoes. Then the pleasure of the pleasure trip commenced for those who had their sea-jegs on. They forthwith waked the undertaker, and lie was too near gone to make any resistance. He had to He and take it. The boys never enjoyed themselves in the presence of an undertaker before,; but now they made one the principal comic feature of a pleasure trip. They lighted candles for him and drank his soul’s"health in whisky which they took, unresisted, from his pockets. They bemoaned and bewailed his. loss in legitimate style. They resolved to lay him away in a plain pine box —took his measure for a wooden overcoat, and in fact, burlesqued the w.nole dismal business. All this time the victim was devoutly wishing himself dead, too, which heightened the effects. ’Twas as good as the wake of Conn, the IShaughraun, and twice as natural. Undertakers are very useful people in their place, but a pleasure excursion by sea does not seem to be the place. This particular pleasure ■party made the best practical use of one under the circumstances That is, tney got some fun out of Him.—. Sf. Louis Republican.