The Milan Exchange

An Obituary Editor.

Two or three years ago I was attached to the Morning Argus, the only paper published in our village, and, during my engagement, we employed as an assistant editor a young man named Drinker. When Drinker began his duties, the manager said to him: "See here, Drinker, among other things, I want you, whenever you see, in exchanges or elsewhere, a good biographical sketch of any prominent man, to clip it out and put it away, so's when he dies, you understand, we can rush it out as an obituary article, as it were." Drinker went to work, and about two months afterward some well-known man died, and I examined the obituary bureau for the purpose of obtaining his history. It was not there: but I discovered that the insidious Drinker had stored away in that mortuary receptacle one biographical sketch of John Wesley, a collection of anecdotes about Gen. Putnam, and an essay upon "The Life and Services of John Hancock." I commenced with Drinker upon the subject. "Mr. Drinker," I said, after calling his attention to the article about the father of Methodism, "you certainly must be aware that John Wesley died long before you came into this office." "N-n-no!" exclaimed Drinker, with a look of pained surprise in his face. "Wh-wh-what! John Wesley dead! That great and good man gone! Thunder! Why, it's too bad. I had no idea of such a thing. What a shock it must have been to his family!" "And as for Gen. Putnam, Drinker, it is perfectly absurd for you to pretend that you thought him alive, you know. Come, now, that's too much!" "Is he dead, too? Well, well. The fact is, I've been living down in the country for two or three years, and haven't kept the run of things. And so old Putnam's dead. That old man. Strange, strange, how we are passing away." "And, Drinker, you certainly can't be such an idiot as to have put away this article about Hancock with the expectation that he would die again. You know he did die once. Why, Drinker, he died about ten thousand years ago." "Come, now!" exclaimed Drinker, exultingly, "I've got you there. Ah! ah! Died ten thousand years ago, did he, smarty? You know too much. You think everybody's a fool but yourself! Dead, is he? Now, what's the use of your trying to stuff that down me, when I know well enough that the Democrats talked about running Hancock for the Presidency at the last election! Oh, pshaw! You ain't fit to write for any paper that's got any sense." Then Drinker was discharged, I didn't enlighten him. He will probably go down to the grave with the firm conviction that General Hancock is the man who set copy for the miserable penmen who signed the Declaration of Independence.—Max Adeler.