“What can it be she wants?” asked Mrs Corney.
“Don’t know,” replied her husband. “All I know is that she’s the old lady as was bundled neck and crop out o’ the first-floor windy o’ the house in Holborn by Frank Willders. She’s a quare owld woman that. She’s got two houses, no less; wan over the coachmaker’s shop—the shop bein’ her property—an’ wan in Russell Square. They say she’s rich enough to line her coffin with goold an inch thick. Spakin’ o’ that, Molly my dear, a quare thing happened to me the other night. It’s what ye call a coinsidence.”
“What’s that, Joe?”
“Well, t’ain’t easy to explain, but it means two things happenin’ together in a most onlikely way—d’ye see?”
“No, I don’t, Joe,” replied Mrs Corney, helping herself to another slice of toast.
“Well, it don’t matter much,” resumed Joe, “but this is what it was: Mr Dale an’ me was sittin’, about two in the mornin’, at the station fire smokin’ our pipes (for it was my turn on duty) an’ chattin’ away about one thing an’ another, when somehow we got upon tellin’ our experiences, an’ Dale he tells me a story o’ how he was once called to a fire in a cemetary, an’ had to go down among the coffins—for they was afire—an’ what a fright some o’ his men got, when, just as he had finished, an’ all my flesh was creepin’ at wot I’d heard, there comes a ring at the bell an’ a call to a fire in Portland Street. I runs an’ gets out the ingin, an’ Frank (he was my mate that night) he rings up the boys, an’ away we wint in tin minutes. It wasn’t far, an’ when we got there in we wint into the house, which was full o’ smoke, but no fire to be seen. We wint coughin’ and sneezin’ an’ rubbin’ our eyes down into a cellar, where the lads of another ingin was at work before us wi’ the hand-pumps, an’, would ye belaive it? but the walls o’ that cellar was lined wi’ coffins! True for ye, there they was, all sizes, as thick as they could stand. I thought I was dramin’, but it was no drame, for it was an undertaker’s shop; an’ when I wint upstairs, after we diskivered the fire an’ put it out, I sees two coffins on tressels lyin’ ready for use. Wan was black-painted wood, no doubt for a poor man, an’ nothin’ inside o’t. The other alongside was covered wid superfine black cloth an’ silver-mounted handles, an’ name-plate, an’ it was all padded inside an’ lined wid white satin!”
“White satin, Joe? You’re jokin’.”
“As sure as your name’s Molly, it was white satin,” repeated Joe; “I wouldn’t have belaived it av I hadn’t seen it; but that’s the way the quality goes to their graves. I looks at the two coffins as I was comin’ away, an’ thinks I to myself, I wonder whether the poor man or the rich man’ll be most comfortable when they’re laid there?”
“Now, Molly, I’ll bid ye good-night an’ be off to see this owld lady, this Mrs Denman. Look afther that boy, now, an kape the matches out of his way, whativer ye do.”
With this very needful warning, Joe Corney kissed his wife and the baby, and went off to the station to obtain leave of absence for a couple of hours.