“Why, didn’t you know? there’s another funeral on today? Didn’t you see that corfin plate what Owen was writing in the drorin’-room last Saturday morning?”
“No, I wasn’t ’ere. Don’t you remember I was sent away to do a ceilin’ and a bit of painting over at Windley?”
“Oh, of course; I forgot,” exclaimed Philpot.
“I reckon Crass and Slyme must be making a small fortune out of all these funerals,” said Harlow. “This makes the fourth in the last fortnight. What is it they gets for ’em?”
“A shillin’ for taking” ’ome the corfin and liftin’ in the corpse, and four bob for the funeral—five bob altogether.”
“That’s a bit of all right, ain’t it?” said Harlow. “A couple of them in a week besides your week’s wages, eh? Five bob for two or three hours work!”
“Yes, the money’s all right, mate, but they’re welcome to it for my part. I don’t want to go messin’ about with no corpses,” replied Philpot with a shudder.
“Who is this last party what’s dead?” asked Harlow after a pause.
“It’s a parson what used to belong to the ‘Shining Light’ Chapel. He’d been abroad for ’is ’ollerdays—to Monte Carlo. It seems ’e was ill before ’e went away, but the change did ’im a lot of good; in fact, ’e was quite recovered, and ’e was coming back again. But while ’e was standin’ on the platform at Monte Carlo Station waitin’ for the train, a porter runned into ’im with a barrer load o’ luggage, and ’e blowed up.”
“Blowed up?”