He
will be dead before we are done with him. We must remember that society
has some claim on us, and not let our better natures be worked upon by the
_post mortem_ promises of a dead drunkard.' Then I took my icicle and
began fumbling around the abdomen portion of Pa's remains, and my chum
took a rough piece of ice and began to saw his leg off, while the other
boy took hold of the leg and said he would catch it when it dropped off.
Well, Pa kicked like a steer. He said he wanted to make one more appeal to
us, and we acted sort of impatent but we let up to hear what he had to
say. He said if we would turn him loose he would give us ten dollars more
than we paid for his body, and that he would never drink another drop as
long as he lived. Then we whispered some more and then told him we thought
favorably of his last proposition, but he must swear, with his hand on the
leg of a corpse we were then dissecting that he would never drink again,
and then he must be blindfolded and be conducted several blocks away from
the dissecting room, before we could turn him loose. He said that was all
right, and so we blindfolded him, and made him take a bloody oath, with
his hand on a piece of ice that we told him was a piece of another corpse,
and then we took him out of the house and walked him around the block four
times, and left him on a corner, after he had promised to send the money
to an address that I gave him.
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