―What is he? he asked. What does he do? Wasn’t he in the stationery line? I fell foul of him one evening, I remember, at bowls.

Ned Lambert smiled.

―Yes, he was, he said, in Wisdom Hely’s. A traveller for blottingpaper.

―In God’s name, John Henry Menton said, what did she marry a coon like that for? She had plenty of game in her then.

―Has still, Ned Lambert said. He does some canvassing for ads.

John Henry Menton’s large eyes stared ahead.

The barrow turned into a side lane. A portly man, ambushed among the grasses, raised his hat in homage. The gravediggers touched their caps.