The Dead House

Mark Twain meets Karl Ritter while researching a story in Germany about Munich's "dead house," where corpses were kept until it became clear they were really dead. Ritter, now dying, had worked in the "dead house" and reveals to Twain his successful attempt to divert the mighty Mississippi River and his killing of a Union cavalryman who not only murdered his wife and baby daughter, but also stole $25,000 from him. Ritter asks Twain to perform a "small" favor.

During a nighttime meeting with a morgue keeper in a German town, Twain listens to a dark tale about how a man got back at the people who killed his family.

In a visit with the evening caretaker of a morgue in a town in Germany, Twain hears a morbid story of how a man exacted revenge on the people who murdered his family.