The king was saying--in the middle of something he'd
started in on--
"--they bein' partickler friends o' the diseased. That's why they're
invited here this evenin'; but tomorrow we want ALL to come--everybody;
for he respected everybody, he liked everybody, and so it's fitten that
his funeral orgies sh'd be public."
And so he went a-mooning on and on, liking to hear himself talk, and
every little while he fetched in his funeral orgies again, till the duke
he couldn't stand it no more; so he writes on a little scrap of paper,
"OBSEQUIES, you old fool," and folds it up, and goes to goo-gooing and
reaching it over people's heads to him. The king he reads it and puts it
in his pocket, and says:
"Poor William, afflicted as he is, his HEART'S aluz right. Asks me to
invite everybody to come to the funeral--wants me to make 'em all
welcome. But he needn't a worried--it was jest what I was at."
Then he weaves along again, perfectly ca'm, and goes to dropping in his
funeral orgies again every now and then, just like he done before. And
when he done it the third time he says:
"I say orgies, not because it's the common term, because it ain't
--obsequies bein' the common term--but because orgies is the right term.
Obsequies ain't used in England no more now--it's gone out.
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