Page:Gissing - The Nether World, vol. I, 1889.djvu/113

 themselves from school for the purpose of beholding this procession. "I do like to see spirited 'orses at a funeral!" remarked one of the mourners, who had squeezed his way to the parlour window. "It puts the finishin' touch, as you may say, don't it?"

When the coffin was borne forth, there was such a press in the street that the men with difficulty reached the hearse. As the female mourners stepped across the pavement with handkerchiefs held to their mouths, a sigh of satisfaction was audible throughout the crowd; the males were less sympathetically received, and some jocose comments from a costermonger, whose business was temporarily interrupted, excited indulgent smiles.

The procession moved slowly away, and the crowd, unwilling to disperse immediately, looked about for some new source of entertainment. They were fortunate, for at this moment came round the corner an individual notorious throughout Clerkenwell as "Mad Jack." Mad he presumably was—at all events, an idiot. A lanky, raw-boned,