Lymport-on-the-Sea remained significantly closed, and it became known
that death had taken Mr. Melchisedec Harrington, and struck one off the
list of living tailors. The demise of a respectable member of this class
does not ordinarily create a profound sensation. He dies, and his equals
debate who is to be his successor: while the rest of them who have come
in contact with him, very probably hear nothing of his great launch and
final adieu till the winding up of cash-accounts; on which occasions we
may augur that he is not often blessed by one or other of the two great
parties who subdivide this universe. In the case of Mr. Melchisedec it
was otherwise. This had been a grand man, despite his calling, and in the
teeth of opprobrious epithets against his craft. To be both generally
blamed, and generally liked, evinces a peculiar construction of mortal.
Mr. Melchisedec, whom people in private called the great Mel, had been at
once the sad dog of Lymport, and the pride of the town. He was a tailor,
and he kept horses; he was a tailor, and he had gallant adventures; he
was a tailor, and he shook hands with his customers. Finally, he was a
tradesman, and he never was known to have sent in a bill. Such a
personage comes but once in a generation, and, when he goes, men miss the
man as well as their money.

That he was dead, there could be no doubt. Kilne, the publican opposite,
had seen Sally, one of the domestic servants, come out of the house in
the early morning and rush up the street to the doctor's, tossing her
hands; and she, not disinclined to dilute her grief, had, on her return,
related that her master was then at his last gasp, and had refused, in so
many words, to swallow the doctor.

'"I won't swallow the doctor!" he says, "I won't swallow the doctor!"'
Sally moaned. '"I never touched him," he says, "and I never will."'

Kilne angrily declared, that in his opinion, a man who rejected medicine
in extremity, ought to have it forced down his throat: and considering
that the invalid was pretty deeply in Kilne's debt, it naturally assumed
the form of a dishonest act on his part; but Sally scornfully dared any
one to lay hand on her master, even for his own good. 'For,' said she,
'he's got his eyes awake, though he do lie so helpless. He marks ye!'

'Ah! ah!' Kilne sniffed the air. Sally then rushed back to her duties.

'Now, there 's a man!' Kilne stuck his hands in his pockets and began his
meditation: which, however