"I can quite believe it," said Mr. Whitmore sympathetically. He had a pleasant voice, but somehow I did not want to catch his eye. Instead I kept my gaze fastened upon the knees of his well-fitting pantaloons. No divine could have been more correctly attired, and yet there was a latent horsiness about his cut. I set him down for a sporting parson from the country, and wondered why he wore clothes so much superior to those of the Plymouth parsons known to me by sight.
"Just listen to that now!" exclaimed Mr. Jope. A cornet in one of the coaches ahead had struck up Tom Bowling, and before we reached the head of the street from coach after coach the funeral party broke into song:
"Here, a sheer hulk, lies poor Tom Bowling,
The darling of his crew-ew;
No more he'll hear the te—empest how—wow—ling,
For death has broach'd him to.
His form was of the—e ma—hanliest beau—eau—ty—"
"Here, a sheer hulk, lies poor Tom Bowling,
The darling of his crew-ew;
No more he'll hear the te—empest how—wow—ling,
For death has broach'd him to.
His form was of the—e ma—hanliest beau—eau—ty—"
"I wouldn't say that, quite," observed Mr. Jope pensively. "To begin with, he'd had the small-pox."
"De gustibus nil nisi bonum," Mr. Whitmore observed soothingly.
"What's that?"
"Latin."
"Wonderful! Would ye mind saying it again?"
The words were obligingly repeated.