Another croque-mort—a garçon he was—came up through the gloom to take our orders. He was dressed completely in the professional garb of a hearse-follower, including claw-hammer coat, full-dress front, glazed tile, and oval silver badge. He droned,—"Bon soir, Macchabées! * Buvez les crachats d'asthmatiques, voilà des sueurs froides d'agonisants. Prenez donc des certificats de décès, seulement vingt sous. C'est pas cher et c'est artistique!"
* This word (also Maccabe, argot Macabit) is given in Paris by sailors to cadavers found floating in the river.
Bishop said that he would be pleased with a lowly bock. Mr. Thompkins chose cherries à l'eau-de-vie, and I, une menthe.
"One microbe of Asiatic cholera from the last corpse, one leg of a lively cancer, and one sample of our consumption germ!" moaned the creature toward a black hole at the farther end of the room.
Some women among the visitors tittered, others shuddered, and Mr. Thompkins broke out in a cold sweat on his brow, while a curious accompaniment of anger shone in his eyes. Our sleepy pallbearer soon loomed through the darkness with our deadly microbes, and waked the echoes in the hollow casket upon which he set the glasses with a thump.
"Drink, Macchabées!" he wailed: "drink these noxious potions, which contain the vilest and deadliest poisons!"
"The villain!" gasped Mr. Thompkins; "it is horrible, disgusting, filthy!"