Page:Doctor Syn - A Smuggler Tale of the Romney Marsh.djvu/22

10 bottle of pickles to a marlin spike in that dirty little store, and get a horrible anecdote thrown in with your bargain from the ready lips of the old fellow, who would continue to hammer away at an unfinished coffin as he talked to you.

But the burning passion that smouldered in the breast of the Ship landlady was in no way shared by the little sexton.

"Missus Waggetts," he would say, "folk in the death trade should keep single; they gets their fair share of misery, Lord above knows, in these parts with the deaths so uncommon few."

"Well," Mrs. Waggetts would sigh, "I often wish as how it had been me that had been took instead of Waggetts. I fair envy him lying up there all so peaceful like, just a-rottin' slowly along in his coffin."

But the sexton would immediately fly into a rage with: "Waggetts' coffin rottin', did you say, Missus Waggetts? Not mine. I undertook Waggetts, I'd have you remember, and I don't undertake to rot. I loses money on my coffins, Missus Waggetts. I undertakes, ma'am, undertakes to provide a suitable affair wot'll keep out damp and water, and cheat worm, grub, slug, and slush."

"Nobody would deny, Mister Mipps," the landlady would answer in a conciliatory tone, "as to how you're a good undertaker. Any one with half an eye could see as how you knocks 'em up solid."