Montezuma's Castle and Other Weird Tales

"No," said the curiosity dealer, "that mummy is not for sale. I had too big a job to get it."


"Tell me about it," I asked.


The curiosity dealer carefully closed and locked the case, and then meditatively rolled a cigarette.


"Well, it was this way: you see I was out after snakes and other natural history specimens. I had a special order from a chap in New York for three hundred snakes—he wanted some big rattlers. I think I sent him some that pleased him; anyhow he paid for them all right. I had a customer who wanted a rattlesnake with a very big rattle, and I fixed up a snake for him on this trip and sent it to him afterwards. It had one hundred and eighteen rattles! I glued a lot of rattles together, and by taking off the buttons it was pretty hard to see where they were joined. This rattle was more than a foot long.