After that they held on their way for some minutes in silence. They had now reached the other side, and were confronted by a couple of respectable-looking gentlemen of an almost clerical aspect, who appeared to be catering in the public streets in the interests of some institution. They approached Mr. Punch and Father TIME, and offered them a prospectus.
"'THE DEAR LITTLE CHILDREN'S HAPPY AND ELEGANT BURIAL INSTITUTION,'" read Mr. Punch, surveying the paper presented to him, and continuing, "'A trivial payment of Ninepence a Month will ensure the youthful Subscriber, or his Representative, a sweet and elegantly-constructed little Coffin, beautifully frilled, with a one-black-horse Family Omnibus Hearse, and a tray of Two Handsome Plumes. N.B.—if preferred, payment of £2 19s. 6d. in cash on production of Corpse.'"
They showed Mr. Punch and Father TIME up the front steps, and ushered them into a large hall. It was thronged with a crowd of dirty and raggedly-dressed people, and partitioned off by a handsome and massive mahogany counter, beyond which sat a staff of clerks busily engaged in keeping the books and generally discharging the duties of the institution.
"Ha, Mrs. MACSTOGGINS, and are we in your debt again?" asked the Agent of a beetle-browed woman of a sinister and forbidding expression, who was thrusting a paper across the counter to the cashier.
"Yes; and I'll trouble you not to keep me waiting, either—seeing that it's gone three days since the burial."
"Is this woman demanding the insurance money for the burial of her own child?" asked Mr. Punch, sternly. And he turned his ring. "And pray, Madam," he continued, addressing the beetle-browed woman, "tell me the truth."
"Certainly," replied the woman, as if in a trance. "First, I insured my own KATE—then I starved her to death, and took the money. Then little BILL followed. I let him catch cold in the winter, and gave him a night or two on the stones, and that finished him. Then came TIM FLAHERTY, and I managed him with the beetle-poison, and—"
"Come," said Mr. Punch, taking Father TIME's arm once more; "let us get out of this—I can't breathe here."
Scarcely had they quitted the place ere they had to encounter an appeal for custom, the Applicant being apparently one of the big guns in the Mercury wine trade, and he was not long in importuning Mr. Punch just to step inside his office, and sample a delicious Lafitte of the 1874 vintage.