* * * * *

’What made you trick me like this?  Where is the money I gave you for the funeral?’

‘That’s werry true, about that money, an’ where is it?  The orkerdest question about money allus is—­“Where is it?” The money for that funeral I ’ad, I won’t deny that.  The orkard question ain’t that:  it’s “Where is it?” But you see, arter I left your studero I sets on that pore gal’s bed a-cryin’ fit to bust; then I goes out into Clement’s Alley, and I calls on Mrs. Mix—­that’s a werry dear friend of mine, the mother o’ seven child’n as are allus a-settin’ on my doorstep, an’ she comes out of Yorkshire you must know, an’ she’s bin a streaker in her day (for she was well off wonst was Mrs. Mix afore she ‘ad them seven dirty-nosed child’n as sets on her neighbours’ doorsteps)—­an’ she sez, sez she, “My pore Meg” (meanin’ me), “I’ve bin the mother o’ fourteen beautiful clean-nosed child’n, an’ I’ve streaked an’ buried seven on ’em, so I ought to know somethink about corpuses, an’ I tell you this corpse o’ your darter’s must be streaked an’ buried at wonst, for she died in a swownd.  An’ there’s nothink like the parishes for buryin’ folk quick, an’ I dessay the coffin’s ordered by this time, an’ I dessay the gent gev you that money just to make you comforble like, seein’ as he killed your darter.”  That’s what Mrs. Mix says to me.  So the parish comed an’ brought a coffin an’ tookt her, pore dear.  And I’ve cried myself stupid-like, bein’ her pore mother as ‘es lost her on’y darter—­an’ I was just a-tryin’ to make myself comfable when this ’ere young toff as seems so werry drunk comes a-rappin’ at my door fit to rap the ‘ouse down.’

‘Has she been buried at all?  How can a spiritual body be buried?’

‘"Buried at all?” What do you mean by insinivatin’ to the pore gal’s conflicted mother as she p’raps ain’t buried at all?  You’re a-makin’ me cry ag’in.  She lays comfable enough underneath a lot of other coffins, in the pauper part of the New North Cimingtary.’

‘Underneath a lot of others; how can that be?’

’What! ain’t you toffs never seed a pauper finneral?  Now that’s a pity; and sich nice toffs as they are, a-settin’ theirselves up to look arter the darters o’ pore folks.  P’raps you never thought how we was buried.  We’re buried, when our time comes, and then they’re werry kind to us, the parish toffs is:—­It’s in a lump—­six at a time—­as they buries us, and sich nice deal coffins they makes us, the parish toffs does, an’ sich nice lamp-black they paints ’em with to make ’em look as if they was covered over with the best black velvid; an’ then sich a nice sarmint—­none o’ your retail sarmints, but a hulsale sarmint—­they reads over the lot, an’ into one hole they packs us one atop o’ the other, jest like a pile o’ the werry best Yarmith bloaters, an’ that’s a good deal more sociable an’ comfable, the parish toffs thinks, than puttin’ us in single; so it is, for the matter o’ that.’