“Oh, it’s sickening,” replied the beadle. “Antimonial, Mr. Sowerberry!”

“So it is,” acquiesced the undertaker.

“We only heard of the family the night before last,” said the beadle; “and we shouldn’t have known anything about them, then, only a woman who lodges in the same house made an application to the porochial committee for them to send the porochial surgeon to see a woman as was very bad. He had gone out to dinner; but his ’prentice (which is a very clever lad) sent ’em some medicine in a blacking-bottle, offhand.”

“Ah, there’s promptness,” said the undertaker.