"Embalmer." Mr. Jope chewed thoughtfully for a moment or two upon a quid of tobacco. "Sort of party you'd go to supposin' as you had a corpse by you and wanted to keep it for a permanency. You take a lot of gums and spices, and first of all you lays out the deceased, and next—"
"Yes, yes," the Parson interrupted hurriedly; "I know the process, of course."
"What? to practise it?" Hope illumined Mr. Jope's countenance.
"No, most certainly not.…But, my good man,—an embalmer! and at Botusfleming, of all places!"
The sailor's face fell. He sighed patiently.
"That's what they said at Saltash, more or less. I got a sister living there—Sarah Treleaven her name is—a widow-woman, and sells fish. When I called on her this morning, 'Embalmer?' she said; 'Go and embalm your grandmother!' Those were her words, and the rest of Saltash wasn't scarcely more helpful. But, as luck would have it, while I was searchin', Bill Adams went for a shave, and inside of the barber's shop what should he see but a fair-sized otter in a glass case? Bill began to admire it, and it turned out the barber had stuffed the thing. Maybe your Reverence knows the man?—'A. Grigg and Son,' he calls hisself."
"Grigg? Yes, to be sure: he stuffed a trout for me last summer."
"What weight, makin' so bold?"
"Seven pounds."
Mr. Jope's face fell again.