“Exclusive of the usual jollification on the occasion, with the mutes and mourners; and an additional guinea, if you think proper to officiate with a black stick and hat-band. Pull your hat over your eyes, hold a white pocket-handkerchief to your face, and nobody will know you:—that's the way to manage. Ha, ha!”
“Very good; very good, indeed. Ha, ha!”
“Ha, ha! But come—what say you to a cheerful glass on this melancholy occasion? Sorrow is dry, you know;—I'll be a bottle.”
“You're very good. And so you're an undertaker, after all, are you?”
“To be sure I am:—come along.”
“And I'm to smuggle you up to Mrs. M., eh?—Ha, ha!—I must say I admire your mode of doing business much.”
“Tact, my dear fellow,—tact and decorum; I display no other talents.”
“Your gay manner, too—”
“Yes; 'we're the lads for life and joy,' as the song says. I'm naturally cheerful; but when I feel pretty sure of my man—as I now do—oddsheart! I'm as merry as a grig. Take my arm.” The undertaker marched off in triumph with his supposed prey leaning on his arm, towards a neighbouring tavern; but whether the reverend gentleman blighted his hopes by an early explanation, or forgot Mrs. M. for a few moments longer, and partook of the proffered bottle, “the chronicler cannot state.”