“Are you so surprised to see me?”
“I thought I never should have seen you again, deary. I thought you was dead, and gone to Heaven.”
“Why?”
“I didn’t suppose you could have kept away, alive, so long, from the poor old soul with the real receipt for mixing it. And you are in mourning too! Why didn’t you come and have a pipe or two of comfort? Did they leave you money, perhaps, and so you didn’t want comfort?”
“No.”
“Who was they as died, deary?”
“A relative.”
“Died of what, lovey?”
“Probably, Death.”
“We are short to-night!” cries the woman, with a propitiatory laugh. “Short and snappish we are! But we’re out of sorts for want of a smoke. We’ve got the all-overs, haven’t us, deary? But this is the place to cure ’em in; this is the place where the all-overs is smoked off.”