"You must remain quiet," said the eldest, with a smile. "We must have you put to bed, and afterwards dressed."
"What is this?" continued I: "am I not dead--was I not buried?"
"Hush, my dear friend--let me throw this great-coat over you."
"But I must speak," said I, my senses still wandering. "Where am I?--who are you?"
"Yes," replied I, gazing at him intently--"my friend Doctor Wunderdudt. Good God! how do you happen to be here? Did I not come alive in the grave?"
"You may thank us that you did not," said he. "Look around, and say if you know where you are."
I looked, as he directed, and found myself in a large room fitted up with benches, and having half-a-dozen skeletons dangling from the roof. While doing this, he and his friend smiled at each other, and seemed anxiously awaiting my reply, and enjoying my wonder. At last I satisfied myself that I was in the anatomical theatre of the University.
"But," said I, "there is something in all this I cannot comprehend. What--where is the coffin?"
"What coffin, my dear fellow?" said Wunderdudt.
"The coffin," said he, smiling; "I suppose it remains where it was put the day before yesterday."
I rubbed my eyes with vexation, not knowing what to make of these perplexing circumstances. "I mean," said I, "the coffin--that is, the coffin I drew over upon me when I fell."
"I do not know of any coffin," answered he, laughing heartily; "but I know very well that you have pulled upon yourself my good mahogany table; there it lies." And on looking, I observed the large table, which stood in the middle of the hall, overturned upon the floor. Doctor Wunderdudt (he was professor of anatomy to the college) now made me retire, and had me put in bed till clothing could be procured. But I would not allow him to depart till he had unravelled the strange web of perplexity in which I still found myself involved. Nothing would satisfy me but a philosophical solution of the problem, "Why was I not buried alive, as I had reason to expect?" The doctor expounded this intricate point in the following manner:--
"The day before yesterday," said he, "I informed the resurrectionists in the service of the University, that I was in want of a subject, desiring them at the same time to set to work with all speed. That very night they returned, assuring me that they had fished up one which would answer to a hair, being both young and vigorous. In order to inform myself of the quality of what they brought me, I examined the body, when, to my indignation and grief, I found that they had disinterred my excellent friend, Mr Frederick Stadt, who had been buried the same day."