“Oh, yes; there is another piece like this.  Someone broke a foot-stone, and it is no good, the man said.  I’ll go and get it, if you want it.”

“Oh, will you? then run quickly.  I’ll make you a new kite, if you will hurry.”

In a very short time Frankie was back with the stone, Georgie, meanwhile, being engaged in setting up the cat’s monument.

“What do you want with the stone, Dexie?” he asked, as he regarded her attentively.

“Come with me, Frankie, and I will show you,” and she led him upstairs to the upper hall.

“I want to play a trick on Mr. Plaisted; but I can’t, unless you will help me.”

“Oh, I’ll do anything you tell me,” his eyes eager for any fun.

“You see, he is a fearful hand to sleep in the mornings.  He is not up yet, and the morning is half gone.  He said last night that he would be up in time for breakfast, if he was alive.  Well, you can hear him snoring in the next room; but, since he is not up, I am going to consider him dead, and I want you to put up his tombstone.  Now, do you think that you can go carefully and put this at the head of his bed without waking him?”

Laying the stone on her knee, she soon had it written over in large, plain letters, and hoping that Plaisted might sleep till noon, as he often did, she slipped downstairs to await results.

It is not often that a man is roused from sleep by his own tombstone falling on him, but that is how was at last awakened.  Quite likely Frankie, fearing to awaken him, did not place it very securely.  However, as Plaisted was about to turn over for another snooze, down came the marble slab on his papered head!  It almost stunned him for a moment, but curiosity roused him enough to find out what had struck him.

Lifting his arms above his head, he grasped the object, but not calculating on its weight, it slipped out of his hands and bruised his head in another spot.  Raising on his elbow, he gazed in bewilderment on the thing, but turning it over he quickly grasped its meaning, for the words thereon were plain enough for the dullest man to understand, and read as follows: 

“Sacred to the memory of
D.S.  PLAISTED,
who departed this life while in full health and curl papers. 
His death was sudden,
but quite expected. 
This monument was erected by one who fully realized his
WORTH-LESS-NESS. 
Peace to his ashes.”

A few moments of awful silence followed the reading of this inscription, then curses both loud and deep were heard in the room.  With a bound he was out of bed, and opening the door he flung his tombstone over the baluster to the bottom of the stairs, with a crash that startled the family from their seats as if a thunderbolt had shaken the house.

Dexie disappeared instantly, knowing what the noise meant, but feeling thankful that there was no one near the stairs when the crash came, or she would have had to seriously repent her joke.  As it was, the stairs were dinged and marred, and the fragments of the tombstone were strewn over the hall.