“She wouldn’t have any one else,” asserted the hard, pink Mr. Hines. “She was as particular about that as about being buried yonder.” He jerked his head toward the window.
“Very well. I will be at the grave. I always am. Trust me to guide the reverend gentleman over any breach in his memory. Excuse me for a moment while I look up my elegies.”
“Say,” said Mr. Hines in his hoarse, confidential croak, as the poet-sexton retired, “this is dead easy. Why, the guy’s on the make. For sale. He’ll stand for anything. Passing out this stuff for other folks to sign! He’s a crook!”
“Make no such mistake,” I advised. “Bartholomew is as honest a man as lives, in his own belief.”
“Very likely. That’s the worst kind,” pronounced the expert Mr. Hines.
Further commentary was cut off by the return of the sexton-poet. “If you will kindly give me the death certificate of the late lamented,” said he.
“What becomes of it after I deliver it?” asked Mr. Hines.
“Read, attested, and filed officially.”
“Any one else but you see it?”
“Not necessarily.”