Elegie: Chapter Five by Charles MacArthur

“No hard feelings, I hope?” he said to Mr. Cunningham.

“None whatsoever,” replied the undertaker, gratefully. “And I promise an A Number One job. No skimping! ... By the way, would you like to see her?”

“The funeral’s Tuesday,” Miller declined. “I can wait.”

A scarcely audible snuffle reminded him of Mibs. He got up, shook his head with martyred resignation and tiptoed across the room.

“Come on out, Mibs,” he called. “Everything’s rosy!”

Mibs appeared, spent with weeping. Miller threw his arm about her.

“What a lump!” he cried, hoping to infect her with his spirits. “I’ll bet she weighs two hundred pounds!”

Mr. Cunningham observed that Mibs was a fine looking woman, well set up and sensible, vouchsafing his opinion that with all these Hollywood diets and the fools that went on them nowadays, it was a wonder that his business hadn’t tripled.

“That’s the trouble with Hollywood,” he added vaguely. “It’s all fad this and fad that.”