I began to time him, making absolutely no answer to anything he said. I quieted the old woman, stood very close to her and put my hand on her head. I said, "It's all right, Mary. Everything is all right. You are not friendless. You are not alone."
The two minutes were up. I took off my coat, rolled up my shirt sleeves and advanced toward him.
"Are you going to do the decent thing?"
There was one long look between us. Then he put the body back in the casket, arranged it for burial, and I opened the door and the crowd came in, not, however, before I had put my coat on again. I read the service and preached the sermon, and the undertaker did the rest.
Some months afterward, I was at work in my study in the tower of the old church, when I heard a loud knocking at the church door—a most unusual thing. I came down and found that undertaker and a gentleman and lady, well dressed, evidently of the well-to-do class, standing at the door.
"Here is a couple that want to get married, Mr. Irvine," the undertaker said.
They came into the study and were married, and I shook hands with the three, and they went off. Next day I went to the undertaker—indeed, he was an undertaker's helper. I went up to his desk and laid down a five-dollar bill, one-fourth of the marriage fee. Without being invited, I pulled a chair up and sat down beside him.
"Now, tell me, brother," I said confidentially. "Why did you bring them to me?"
A smile overspread his features.
"Well," he said, "it was like this. You remember that funeral business?"