Admeh Drake by Gelett Burgess — Read

"I expeck yer cut off yer own nose, all right," said Coffee John. "If the sperits of the dead do return, an' I was to come along with 'em, it seems to me I'd plye Mrs. 'Iggin's gyme, an' run abart a million o' shyster ghost-raisers art o' business in this city. I see their notices in the dyly pypers, an' it feerly mykes a man sick. The more you show 'em up, the more the people come to be gulled. 'Uman nychur is certingly rum. Lord love yer, I've been to 'em, an' I've been told my nyme was Peter, wa'nt it? an' if not Peter, Hennery; an' didn't I 'ave a gryte-gran'father wot died? So I did, an' I'm jolly glad 'e ain't lived to be a hundred an' forty neither! W'y is it thet the sperit of a decent Gawd-fearink woman wants to get familiar with a bloke wot wipes 'is nose on 'is arm-sleeve an' chews terbacker? It's agin reason an' nature, an' I don't go a cent on it. It's enough to myke a man commit murder coupled with improper lengwidge!"

He turned to the third man, who had made no comments on the stories. "You're one as 'as loved an' lost," he said. "Yer look like one as is a lion with men an' a bloomin' mouse with women. You don't cyre w'ether school keeps or not, you don't, an' I'm wonderin' why. I don't just like yer turnin' yer back on Dewey, though plenty o' Spanishers 'ave felt the syme wye. Yer gort a fist as could grip a gun-stock, an' an eye wot ain't afryde to look a man in the fyce, if yer do keep 'em behind specs. If yer can give a good reason for turnin' Dewey to the wall, nar's the charnce!"