! it is quite true what I say. The poor are just as much trouble in
death as they are in life!"

There was once a new manager of the cemetery who wished to get rid of
Abraham, who caused general indignation when he went tumbling about
tipsy among the graves. But the dean said, "What is to become of the
poor man? He will remain as a burden either to you or to me; and
besides, he has been with us as long as I have been here, and I have
always been able to bear with his sad infirmity. It would really go to
my heart to drive him away." And so the public were content to keep
Abraham as an evidence of Dean Sparre's kindness of heart.

As Woodlouse stood looking at the bones, he was absorbed in
philosophical meditation, and he could not help thinking that there was
a sort of air of defiance in the grin, with which one of the skulls
returned his gaze. It struck him that this skull might perhaps be
thinking how peaceful it was to rest here in the sacred earth of the
churchyard. But surely it was just as peaceful over there in the house
in which the bones were placed; and if neither church nor provost,
chaplain nor sexton, gravedigger nor organist, bell-ringer nor acolyte,
no, not one of them had got his due, it was quite impossible that it
should be otherwise. And when he came to consider further, he thought
that he could discover in these bare bones and these bleached skulls, an
expression he knew only too well in life; a kind of cleared-out
expression, which seems to cling to those who have not paid their debts.

Meanwhile Pastor Martens's sonorous voice echoed over the cemetery as he
was approaching the end of his discourse. "The six feet of earth" was
repeated again and again, like the refrain upon which a good composer
will hang a whole symphony; and each time it seemed to make a deeper
impression. The account in the evening papers might perhaps be slightly
exaggerated, when it said that not an eye was dry; but certain is it
that many wept, and not only women, but men also. Some even of the
merchants, who had carried the coffin, were seen using their
pocket-handkerchiefs.

It was really an extraordinary address. Just at the commencement it had
caused an uneasy feeling, when Martens began to speak about the great
riches of the deceased. There was some apprehension lest he should make
some ill-timed application of the parable of the camel and the needle's
eye; but the speaker had just managed to say the right thing. There