Sunday was his great trial, because he was never allowed out till evening, and then she always went with him for a short stroll. Not being able to get a smoke that day made him want it all the more—which is only human nature, and always has been.
At last, noticing that she used to sleep very soundly of an afternoon, he got artful, and would learn his collect beforehand in his dinner-hour at the shop, and, when she was asleep and snoring, creep out of the room with his hymn-book, and learn that over a pipe down in the shed that was at the bottom of the yard, where the coals were always kept, they having no underground coal-cellar in the little house they lived in. He was afraid to smoke in the garden, for fear the neighbours should see him and by chance let her know he had been smoking. So he used to crawl into the shed, and had made himself a comfortable corner there, and a seat on an old basket turned upside down, and he had a candle, which he stuck up to read by; and that was his most enjoyable half-hour on Sunday.
He always managed to go in with some coals, so that, if she woke up and missed him, he could say, when he came in, he had been to the coal-shed. He had to work the kitchen fire in the summer very carefully, so as to make it always want coals just at that time.
His end was very awful. It seems that Mrs. Croker, who was always one to drive a bargain, and had bought no end of things cheap, which she hoarded away, being a miser, as you may guess, had been offered a big can of oil, that is burned in lamps, cheap by a neighbour who had the brokers in, and been sold up or something of the sort, and she had bought it and had it taken into this shed.
One dark Sunday afternoon, poor Croker, knowing nothing about the oil, went into the coal-shed and lit his candle, and sat down to learn his hymn and have his pipe, when, in settling himself down, he knocked over the can that he didn’t know was there, and it made him jump, and in his fright down he came and the candle too, and he and the candle fell into a pool of the oil, and everything was in a blaze in a minute.
His screams brought assistance, and he was got out, but not before he was so burned that he never got over it, but died a little while after.
It was at the inquest that it came out why he was there smoking, one of his mates volunteering and giving off a bit of his mind before the coroner could stop him.
Mrs. Croker, after she got over the shock, said it was a judgment, and it all happened through men deceiving their wives; but other people who knew all about her put it differently.
Two years after Mr. Croker’s quiet Sunday pipe had caused his end, Mrs. Croker, who must have had a tidy bit of money, because she had saved a good deal out of Croker’s wages, and was always thrifty, and had his club and insurance money, married again. This time she married a younger man, a man in good work, named Dan Smith. I suppose Mr. Smith thought she had a bit of money, and didn’t know what a character she was.
At any rate, Mrs. Croker became Mrs. Smith, and she tried the same game on with Daniel as she had with the other.