"Darn your eyes, don't it look like one? And after the expense I've been to!" He paused, eyed me solemnly, opened his mouth, and pointed down it with his forefinger. "Drink done it." His voice was impressive. "Steer you wide of the drink, my lad; or else drop down on it gradual. If drink must be your moorings, don't pick 'em up too rash. 'A boiled leg o' mutton first,' says I, persuasive; 'and turnips,' and got him to Symonds's boarding-house for the very purpose, Symonds being noted. And Symonds—I'll do him that justice—says the same. Symonds says—"
But at this point a young woman—and pretty, too, though daubed with paint—thrust her hat and head out of a window, three carriages away, and demanded to know what in the name of Moses we were waiting for.
"Signals, my dear. The flagship's forra'd; and keep your eye lifting that way, if you please. I'm main glad you fell in with us," he went on affably, turning to me; "because you round it up nicely. Barring the sharks in black weepers, you're the only mourning-card in the bunch, and I'll see you get a good position at the grave."
"Thank you, sir."
"Don't mention it. We're doin' our best. When poor Bill dropped down in Symonds's"—he jerked his thumb towards the boarding-house door—"Symonds himself was for turning everyone out. Very nice feeling he showed, I will say. 'Damn it, here's a go!' he says; 'and the man looked healthy enough for another ten year, with proper care!'—and went off at once to stop the fiddlers and put up the shutters. But, of course, it meant a loss to him, the place being full at the time; and I felt a sort of responsibility for having introduced Bill. So I went after him and says I, 'This is a most unforeseen occurrence.' 'Not a bit,' says he; 'accidents will happen.' I told him that the corpse had never been a wet blanket; it wasn't his nature; and I felt sure he wouldn't like the thought. 'If that's the case, says Symonds, 'I've a little room at the back where he'd go very comfortable—quite shut off, as you might say. We must send for the doctor, of course, and the crowner can sit on him to-morrow—that is, if you feel sure deceased wouldn' think it any disrespect.' 'Disrespect?' says I. 'You don't know Bill. Why, it's what he'd arsk for!' So there we carried him, and I sent for the undertaker same time as the doctor, and ordered it of oak; and next morning, down I tramped to Dock and chose out a grave, brick-lined, having heard him say often, 'Plymouth folk for wasting, but Dock folk for lasting.' I won't say but what, between whiles, we've been pretty lively at Symonds's; and I won't say—Hallo! Here's more luck! Your servant, sir!"
He stepped forward—leaving me shielded and half hidden by the coach door—and accosted a stranger walking briskly up the pavement towards us with a small valise in his hand; a gentlemanly person of about thirty-five or forty, in clerical suit and bands.
"Eh? Good-morning!" nodded the clergyman affably.
"Might I arsk where you're bound?" Then, after a pause, "My name's Jope, sir; Benjamin Jope, of the Bedford, seventy-four, bo'sun's mate—now paid off."
The clergyman, at first taken aback by the sudden question, recovered his smile. "And mine, sir, is Whitmore—the Reverend John Whitmore— bound just now in the direction of Dock. Can I serve you thereabouts?"
Mr. Jope waved his hand towards the coach door. "Jump inside! Oh, you needn't be ashamed to ride behind Bill!"