“—to one of the oldest and most prominent citizens of our town, a pillar of our church, and a monument of the civic virtues of probity, industry and wisdom, a man in whom we all took pride, and—“
“Clk!” Mr. Pursly looked up more quickly this time, and a faint suggestion of an expression just vanishing from Mr. Hitt’s lips awakened in his unsuspicious breast a horrible suspicion that Brother Joash had chuckled.
“—whose like we shall not soon again see in our midst. The children on the streets will miss his familiar face—“
“Say!” broke in Brother Joash, “how’d it be for a delegation of child’n to foller the remains, with flowers or sump’n’? They’d volunteer if you give ’em the hint, wouldn’t they?”
“It would be—unusual,” said the minister.
“All right,” assented Mr. Hitt, “only an idee of mine. Thought they might like it. Go ahead!”
Mr. Pursly went ahead, haunted by an agonizing fear of that awful chuckle, if chuckle it was. But he got along without interruption until he reached a casual and guarded allusion to the widows and orphans without whom no funeral oration is complete. Here the metallic voice of Brother Joash rang out again.
“Say! Ef the widders and orphans send a wreath—or a Gates-Ajar—ef they do, mind ye!—you’ll hev it put a-top of the coffin, where folks’ll see it, wun’t ye?”
“Certainly,” said the Reverend Mr. Pursly, hastily; “his charities were unostentatious, as was the whole tenor of his life. In these days of spendthrift extravagance, our young men may well—“
“Say!” Brother Joash broke in once more. “Ef any one wuz to git up right there, an’ say that I wuz the derndest meanest, miserly, penurious, parsimonious old hunks in ’Quawket, you wouldn’t let him talk like that, would ye?”