XI: Death Cometh Soon or Late

It was Alick Robbins who named the invalid the Living Skeleton, and probably remorse for having thus given him a title so descriptively accurate, caused him to make friends with the Living Skeleton, a man who seemed to have no friends.

Robbins never forgot their first conversation. It happened in this way. It was the habit of the Living Skeleton to leave his hotel every morning promptly at ten o’clock, if the sun was shining, and to shuffle rather than walk down the gravel street to the avenue of palms. There, picking out a seat on which the sun shone, the Living Skeleton would sit down and seem to wait patiently for someone who never came. He wore a shawl around his neck and a soft cloth cap on his skull. Every bone in his face stood out against the skin, for there seemed to be no flesh, and his clothes hung as loosely upon him as they would have upon a skeleton. It required no second glance at the Living Skeleton to know that the remainder of his life was numbered by days or hours, and not by weeks or months. He didn’t seem to have energy enough even to read, and so it was that Robbins sat down one day on the bench beside him, and said sympathetically:--

“I hope you are feeling better to-day.”

The Skeleton turned towards him, laughed a low, noiseless, mirthless laugh for a moment, and then said, in a hollow, far-away voice that had no lungs behind it: “I am done with feeling either better or worse.”

“Oh, I trust it is not so bad as that,” said Robbins; “the climate is doing you good down here, is it not?”

Again the Skeleton laughed silently, and Robbins began to feel uneasy. The Skeleton’s eyes were large and bright, and they fastened themselves upon Robbins in a way that increased that gentleman’s uneasiness, and made him think that perhaps the Skeleton knew he had so named him.

“I have no more interest in climate,” said the Skeleton. “I merely seem to live because I have been in the habit of living for some years; I presume that is it, because my lungs are entirely gone. Why I can talk or why I can breathe is a mystery to me. You are perfectly certain you can hear me?”

“Oh, I hear you quite distinctly,” said Robbins.

“Well, if it wasn’t that people tell me that they can hear me, I wouldn’t believe I was really speaking, because, you see, I have nothing to speak with. Isn’t it Shakespeare who says something about when the brains are out the man is dead? Well, I have seen some men who make me think Shakespeare was wrong in his diagnosis, but it is generally supposed that when the lungs are gone a man is dead. To tell the truth, I am dead, practically. You know the old American story about the man who walked around to save funeral expenses; well, it isn’t quite that way with me, but I can appreciate how the man felt. Still I take a keen interest in life, although you might not think so. You see, I haven’t much time left; I am going to die at eight o’clock on the 30th of April. Eight o’clock at night, not in the morning, just after table d’hôte.”

“You are going to what!” cried Robbins in astonishment.

“I’m going to die that day. You see I have got things to such a fine point, that I can die any time I want to. I could die right here, now, if I wished. If you have any mortal interest in the matter I’ll do it, and show you what I say is true. I don’t mind much, you know, although I had fixed April the 30th as the limit. It wouldn’t matter a bit for me to go off now, if it would be of any interest to you.”

“I beg you,” said Robbins, very much alarmed, “not to try any experiments on my account. I am quite willing to believe anything you say about the matter--of course you ought to know.”

“Yes, I do know.” answered the Living Skeleton sadly. “Of course I have had my struggle with hope and fear, but that is all past now, as you may well understand. The reason that I have fixed the date for April 30th is this: you see I have only a certain amount of money--I do not know why I should make any secret of it. I have exactly 240 francs today, over and above another 100 francs which I have set aside for another purpose. I am paying 8 francs a day at the Golden Dragon; that will keep me just thirty days, and then I intend to die.”

The Skeleton laughed again, without sound, and Robbins moved uneasily on the seat.

“I don’t see,” he said finally, “what there is to laugh about in that condition of affairs.”

“I don’t suppose there is very much; but there is something else that I consider very laughable, and that I will tell you if you will keep it a secret. You see, the Golden Dragon himself--I always call our innkeeper the Golden Dragon, just as you call me, the Living Skeleton.”

“Oh, I--I--beg your pardon,” stammered Robbins, “I--.”

“It really doesn’t matter at all. You are perfectly right, and I think it a very apt term. Well, the old Golden Dragon makes a great deal of his money by robbing the dead. You didn’t know that, did you? You thought it was the living who supported him, and goodness knows he robs them when he has a chance. Well, you are very much mistaken. When a man dies in the Golden Dragon, he, or his friends rather, have to pay very sweetly for it. The Dragon charges them for re-furnishing the room. Every stick of furniture is charged for, all the wall-paper, and so on. I suppose it is perfectly right to charge something, but the Dragon is not content with what is right. He knows he has finally lost a customer, and so he makes all he can out of him. The furniture so paid for, is not re-placed, and the walls are not papered again, but the Dragon doesn’t abate a penny of his bill on that account. Now, I have inquired of the furnishing man, on the street back of the hotel, and he has written on his card just the cost of mattress, sheets, pillows, and all that sort of thing, and the amount comes to about 50 francs. I have put in an envelope a 50-franc note, and with it the card of the furniture man. I have written a letter to the hotel-keeper, telling him just what the things will cost that he needs, and have referred the Dragon to the card of the furniture man who has given me the figures. This envelope I have addressed to the Dragon, and he will find it when I am dead. This is the joke that old man Death and myself have put up on our host, and my only regret is that I shall not be able to enjoy a look at the Dragon’s countenance as he reads my last letter to him. Another sum of money I have put away, in good hands where he won’t have a chance to get it, for my funeral expenses, and then you see I am through with the world. I have nobody to leave that I need worry about, or who would either take care of me or feel sorry for me if I needed care or sympathy, which I do not. So that is why I laugh, and that is why I come down and sit upon this bench, in the sunshine, and enjoy the posthumous joke.”