So they waited until he slept - those
simple, honest, chuckle-headed chaps - and then they slipped in
with a lighted torch and touched him off.
Well, sir, the joke certainly was on those soldiers. He burned
up with all the spontaneous enthusiasm of a celluloid comb. For
qualities of instantaneous combustion he must have been the equal
of any small-town theater that ever was built - with one exit. He
was practically a total loss and there was no insurance.
They still have him, or what is left of him, in that glass case.
He did not exactly suffer martyrdom - though probably he personally
did not notice any very great difference - and so he has not been
canonized; nevertheless, they have him there in that church. In
all Europe I only saw one sight to match him, and that was down
in the crypt under the Church of the Capuchins, in Rome, where the
dissected cadavers of four thousand dead - but not gone - monks are
worked up into decorations. There are altars made of their skulls,
and chandeliers made of their thigh bones; frescoes of their spines;
mosaics of their teeth and dried muscles; cozy corners of their
femurs and pelves and tibiae. There are two classes of travelers
I would strongly advise not to visit the crypt of the Capuchins'
Church - those who are just about to have dinner and want to have
it, and those who have just had dinner and want to keep on having
it.
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