“It will be my lasting reputation,” said Basil, “to meet the grand desire of the age. For do you not perceive, sir, the great tendency of our time is to sink the serious, and to save the droll? Folks who have an eagle in their coat-of-arms begin to be ashamed of it, and paint it out for the laughing goose. In a very little while and we shall put a horse-collar round about the world, expressly for all the world to grin through it.”
“You know best, Mr. Basil,” said Mizzlemist, “but surely ’twill be a great stop to business.”
“Now, in pursuit of the comic,” said Basil, “I think we might very successfully carry fun into the churchyard. A man of true humour, sir, and such a man every morning when I rise I am in the habit of considering—himself may put a capital joke into an epitaph, and get a broad grin from a skeleton. I think I see my board and card—‘Basil Pennibacker, the Original Comic Undertaker. Funerals acted in the happiest vein of humour. Mutes of every drollery.’ I think that will do, sir.”
“It will never be permitted, sir; never,” said the literal Mizzlemist. “The legislature, sir, will not permit it. I like a joke, sir; I think I may say I like a joke, but when the ashes of”—
“What! Eh? Why here comes Mr. Jericho, pelting along. Humph?” cried Colonel Bones, who had run to the window.
“Then I’m off,” said Basil, and instantly he ran down to the door, jumped in his saddle, and was speedily far away in a cloud of dust.
Mizzlemist approached the window. Jericho’s equipage came rattling down the hill, Hodmadod and Candituft galloping a little in advance. The carriage pulled up at the door of the Silver Lion. Mizzlemist had descended, and approached Mr. Jericho. “I am very sorry, sir, that I should have missed you,” said the Doctor. “I brought out the Colonel for a ride, and thought we should all meet at the Lodge. I thought you’d have stopt”—
“I don’t stop, Doctor Mizzlemist,” said Jericho coldly, whilst Mizzlemist stept back in astonishment—“I don’t stop for anybody. Who are you, sir—whom do you take me for?” bellowed Jericho, whilst Mizzlemist stared, and his jaw fell in mute wonder. Here, Colonel Bones, benevolently thought he might come to the rescue of his friend. Whereupon bending his iron face into a very severe smile, he began—
“I do assure you, Jericho, that”—
“Jericho!” exclaimed the Man of Money, with an oath that passed upon the Colonel a very hot and very summary sentence, “Who asked you to speak? A toad-eater! A bone-picking pauper! Drive on!” and Jericho sank back like an exhausted savage; the coach and cavaliers flew forward, and Mizzlemist confounded, groped his way back to the Colonel, whom he found seated, foaming at the mouth, and violently cutting the air about him with a knife he had taken from the table, inarticulately spluttering—“Toad-eater! Majesty’s officer! Bone-picker! Blood—blood—blood!”