Then you will, be arrested,
tried, condemned to be hanged, thrown into prison. Now is your happy
day. You will be converted--you will be converted just as soon as
every effort to compass pardon, commutation, or reprieve has failed--and
then!--Why, then, every morning and every afternoon, the best and purest
young ladies of the village will assemble in your cell and sing hymns.
This will show that assassination is respectable. Then you will write a
touching letter, in which you will forgive all those recent Browns. This
will excite the public admiration. No public can withstand magnanimity.
Next, they will take you to the scaffold, with great eclat, at the head
of an imposing procession composed of clergymen, officials, citizens
generally, and young ladies walking pensively two and two, and bearing
bouquets and immortelles. You will mount the scaffold, and while the
great concourse stand uncovered in your presence, you will read your
sappy little speech which the minister has written for you. And then, in
the midst of a grand and impressive silence, they will swing you into
per--Paradise, my son. There will not be a dry eye on the ground. You
will be a hero! Not a rough there but will envy you.
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