The tap-room was crowded, and there was no room for the men, and they were taken into the kitchen, where they were seated, and earnestly at work, preparing for the ceremony that had so shortly to be performed.

“Any better, Jacobs?”—­“What do you mean?” inquired Jacobs, with a groan.  “It’s news to me if I have been ill.”

“Oh, yes, you were doleful up stairs, you know.”—­“I’ve a proper regard for my profession—­that’s the difference between you and I, you know.”

“I’ll wager you what you like, now, that I’ll handle a corpse and drive a screw in a coffin as well as you, now, although you are so solid and miserable.”—­“So you may—­so you may.”

“Then what do you mean by saying I haven’t a proper regard for my profession?”—­“I say you haven’t, and there’s the thing that shall prove it—­you don’t look it, and that’s the truth.”

“I don’t look like an undertaker! indeed I dare say I don’t if I ain’t dressed like one.”—­“Nor when you are,” reiterated Jacob.

“Why not, pray?”—­“Because you have always a grin on your face as broad as a gridiron—­that’s why.”

This ended the dispute, for the employer of the men suddenly put his head in, saying,—­

“Come, now, time’s up; you are wanted up stairs, all of you.  Be quick; we shall have his reverence waiting for us, and then we shall lose his recommendation.”

“Ready sir,” said the round man, taking up his pint and finishing it off at a draught, at the same moment he thrust the remains of some bread and cheese into his pocket.

Jacob, too, took his pot, and, having finished it, with great gravity followed the example of his more jocose companion, and they all left the kitchen for the room above, where the corpse was lying ready for interment.

There was an unusual bustle; everybody was on the tip-top of expectation, and awaiting the result in a quiet hurry, and hoped to have the first glimpse of the coffin, though why they should do so it was difficult to define.  But in this fit of mysterious hope and expectation they certainly stood.

“Will they be long?” inquired a man at the door of one inside,—­“will they be long before they come?”—­“They are coming now,” said the man.  “Do you all keep quiet; they are knocking their heads against the top of the landing.  Hark!  There, I told you so.”

The man departed, hearing something, and being satisfied that he had got some information.

“Now, then,” said the landlord, “move out of the way, and allow the corpse to pass out.  Let me have no indecent conduct; let everything be as it should be.”

The people soon removed from the passage and vicinity of the doorway, and then the mournful procession—­as the newspapers have it—­moved forward.  They were heard coming down stairs, and thence along the passage, until they came to the street, and then the whole number of attendants was plainly discernible.