"Lor', Jack," Mrs. Randall said under her breath with a nudge, "wot a common caufin! Why, the body's very nigh a-droppin' through the bottom!" The thin under-board had, in fact, a bulge. "Pore chap! ain't it shockin'!"
The ignominy of a funeral with no feathers was a thing accepted of course, but the horror of a cheap coffin they had never realized till now. They turned away. In the main path they met the turgid funeral of a Bow Road bookmaker. After the dozen mourning coaches there were cars and pony traps, and behind these came a fag-end of carts and donkey-barrows. Ahead of all was the glazed hearse, with attendants in weepers, and by it, full of the pride of artistry, walked the undertaker himself.
"Now that," said old Jack, "is somethin' like a caufin." (It was heavy and polished and beset with bright fittings.) "Ah," sighed his missis, "ain't it lovely!"
The hearse drew up at the chapel door, where the undertaker turned to the right-about and placidly surveyed the movements of his forces. Mrs. Randall murmured again: "Lovely—lovely!" and kept her eyes on the coffin. Then she edged gently up to the undertaker, and whispered, "What would that kind o' caufin be called, mister?"
The undertaker looked at her from the sides of his eyes, and answered briskly, "Two-inch polished oak solid extry brass fittin's." Mrs. Randall returned to old Jack's side and repeated the words. "That must cost a lot," she said. "What a thing, though, to be certain you won't be buried in a trumpery box like that other! Ah, it's well to be rich."
Old Jack gazed on the coffin, and thought. Surely a landlord, if anybody, was entitled to indulge in an expensive coffin? All day he had nursed a fancy that some small indulgence, something a little heavier than usual in the matter of expense, would be proper to celebrate the occasion. But he reflected that his savings were gone and his pockets no fuller than had always been their Wednesday wont: though, of course, in that matter the future would be different. The bearers carried the coffin into the chapel, and Mrs. Randall turned away among the graves. Old Jack put his hands in his pockets, and, looking at the ground, said: "That was a nobby caufin, mother, wasn't it?" Whereunto Mrs. Randall murmured: "Lovely—lovely!" yet again.
Old Jack walked a little further, and asked, "Two-inch polished oak, 'e said, didn't 'e?"
"Solid, an' extry brass fittin's; beautiful!"
"I'll remember it. That's what you shall 'ave if it 'appens you go fust. There!" And old Jack sat on the guard-chain of a flowery grave with the air of one giving a handsome order.