Elbow-Room Part 34

_Gunn_. "I say, think how wretched will be the condition of those dear ones whom you leave behind you! Will not the tears of your heartbroken widow be made more bitter by the poverty in which she is suddenly plunged, and by the reflection that she is left to the charity of a cold and heartless world. Will not--"

_b.u.t.terwick_. "I wouldn't leave her a cent if I had millions. It'll do the old woman good to skirmish around for her living. Then she'll appreciate me."

_Gunn_. "Your poor little children, too. Fatherless, orphaned, they will have no one to fill their famished mouths with bread, no one to protect them from harm. You die uninsured, and they enter a life of suffering from the keen pangs of poverty. You insure in our company, and they begin life with enough to feed and clothe them, and to raise them above the reach of want."

_b.u.t.terwick_. "I don't want to raise them above the reach of want. I want them to want. Best thing they can do is to tucker down to work as I did"

_Gunn_. "Oh, Mr. b.u.t.terwick, try to take a higher view of the matter.

When you are an angel and you come back to revisit the scenes of earth, will it not fill you with sadness to see your dear ones exposed to the storm and the blast, to hunger and cold?"

_b.u.t.terwick_. "I'm not going to be an angel; and if I was, I wouldn't come back."

_Gunn_. "You are a poor man now. How do you know that your family will have enough when you are gone to pay your funeral expenses, to bury you decently?"

_b.u.t.terwick_. "I don't want to be buried."

_Gunn_. "Perhaps Mrs. b.u.t.terwick will be so indignant at your neglect that she will not mourn for you, that she will not shed a tear over your bier."

_b.u.t.terwick_. "I don't want a bier, and I'd rather she wouldn't cry any."

_Gunn_. "Well, then, s'posin' you go in on the endowment plan and take a policy for five thousand dollars, to be paid you when you reach the age of fifty?"

_b.u.t.terwick_. "I don't want five thousand dollars when I'm fifty. I wouldn't take it if you were to fling it at me and pay me to take it."

_Gunn_. "I'm afraid, then, I'll have to say good-morning."

_b.u.t.terwick_. "I don't want you to say good-morning; you can go without saying it."

_Gunn_. "I'll quit."

_b.u.t.terwick_. "Aha! now you've hit it! I _do_ want you to quit, and as suddenly as you can."

Then Mr. Gunn left. He thinks he will hardly insure b.u.t.terwick.

[Ill.u.s.tration: FINIS]