Mr. Banks was busily employed in fitting a lid to a coffin which stood upon trestles in the middle of the shop; and his two eldest boys, one fifteen and the other thirteen, were occupied, the first in planing a board, and the second in sawing a plank.
"Well," mused Mr. Banks to himself, as he proceeded with his work, "I hope Miss Kate won't fail to keep her appintment—partickler as Tidkins seems so sure of the job. That other feller which came yesterday to look at my first floor front as is to let, never returned. And yet he appeared to like the blessed place well enow. Goodness knows he asked questions by the dozen, and looked in every cranny about the house. What did he want to bother his-self like that as to whether there was a good yard for his missus to hang her clothes in on washing days? He should have sent her to see all about that. Then he would see where the yard-wall looked—and whether there was a yard or a street t' other side—and all about it. I raly thought he would have taken the rooms. But p'rhaps he didn't like the coffins: p'rhaps his missus don't fancy that there constant hammering. Ah! it's a sinful world!"
And, as if deeply impressed by this conviction, the undertaker shook his head solemnly.
He then continued his employment for some time without musing upon any one topic in particular.
At length he broke silence altogether.
"Now, Ned," said he to his eldest-born (he had five or six smaller specimens of the Banks' breed indoors), as he raised his head from his work, and looked severely round towards the lad; "that's quite planing enow: the board'll be veared as thin as a egg-case before it's used. Make it on economic principles, boy—economic principles, I say, mind!" added Mr. Banks, sternly.
"It ain't economic principles to turn out coffins as rough as if they didn't know what planing is," returned the youth; "'cause the friends of the defuncks'll only send them back again."
"The friends of the defuncts will do no such a thing to a 'spectable furnisher of funerals like me, as has lived, man and boy, in the same house for fifty year, and paid his way reglar," responded Mr. Banks. "If we adopts economic principles, we can't waste wood or time either."
"And do you mean to say, father," cried the boy, "that this here plank is planed enow? Pass your hand along it, and it'll get kivered with splinters—stuck all over like a porkipine."
"It will do exceeding well for the blessed carkiss that'll rejice in such a lid as that board will help to make him," said Banks, sweeping his horny palm over the plank. "That's good enow—that's economic principles."