“Have I equalled Homer’s record?”

“Of course,” I answered; “you, as an American, couldn’t stand being beaten by a foreigner like Homer, even though you are both dead ones. You are claimed by New York, Philadelphia, Washington, Arlington, Richmond, Fredericksburg, Annapolis, and Ocean Grove. I believe[Pg 39] there are a few other cities whose names have escaped my memory. Have you any preference in the matter?”

[Pg 39]

“It’s odd no one has thought about consulting me before. I could have settled the controversy at once. France did not treat me or my bones very well, yet I can’t say I am glad to leave there. It isn’t very pleasant to be dead, but it’s worse to have people squabble over your body. I wonder if Porter ever heard the adage ‘Let the dead rest in peace,’ and that other one ‘Cursed be he who moves my bones!’ You’ve seen two dogs fight over a bone, but you never saw the bone fight. I am nothing but bones.”

“New York’s claim—”

“I hope they won’t bury me in New York. I’ve heard it said that the metropolis is noisy enough to wake the dead and it is certain that my presence would make Captain Landais turn over in his grave. I always did bore Landais and so if I invaded the territory of the tired, St. Patrick’s cemetery would yawn and give up its dead.”

“Had you been a politician,” observed Matt Quay, “some faction of our party would long since have unearthed one of your letters in which you had selected your burial place.”

“You have not yet told me your choice,” I reiterated, remembering the city editor’s parting words.

“I would rather be embalmed in the throbbing[Pg 40] heart of the sea, with which my own heart beat so long in unison. My grave has been unmarked for a century, so why not forever? I would prefer to be commander of that greatest army of all, the unknown dead, whose resting place is marked only by monuments of billows and flowers of feathery spray. A bridal veil of silver surge is as elaborate a shroud as I desire.”

[Pg 40]

“How about cremation?”

“We’ll get enough of that down here some day, so it is useless to undergo the ‘roasting’ process twice. Yet it has its advantages. Soldiers and sailors don’t get much time for godliness, you know, and as cleanliness is next to it, cremation might—”

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