“Don’t ’ee say more than just that one word, Mister,” replied the other, in a tone of such unctuous slyness that Wolf made a grimace in the darkness. “Some relatives do like to use a common sheet. But I do say ’tis the corpse’s feelings what us have to reason with. These here shrouds”⁠—and he tapped Wolf’s knee with the carpetbag⁠—“be calculated to lie as soft and light on they, as lamb’s-wool on babes. ’Twas one of these here shrouds that thik bullfrog Manley cheated his wone mother of, by his dunghill ways; and her a woman too what always had a finicky skin. But don’t ’ee say more than just that one word, mister. Missy up there, ’tis only likely enough, will give no more attention to these here shrouds than if she were tucking her Dad in’s bed. But ‘Leave it to Torp’ is what thik corpse would say, were speech allowed ’un. They be wonderful touchy, they corpses be, if all were told; and it be worse when folks’ tongues run sharp upon ’un, as we know they do on he above-stairs. ’Twere me thoughts of that , mister, that made I reckon Miss Malakite would be glad to see I, sooner than they death-nurses, who be all such tittle-tattlers.”