nts up, and his bare,
skinny legs showed above his wrecked boots, his feet looked like two
water-logged cutters under bare poles, with the water running out of the
scuppers.

Mary brought the whisky. I poured him out a good, stiff second mate's
nip. It did my heart good to see him drink it, and hear the soft
ecstatic 'Ah, ah, ah,' which broke from him when he put the glass down;
it was a _Te Deum Laudamus_.

Having briefly intimated to him that I had no intention of buying 'a
handsome granite monument, with suitable inscription, or twelve lines
of verse, for L4, 17s. 6d.,' I took up his packet of _In Memoriam_ cards
and went through them. The first one was a hand-drawn design in cream
and gold--Kate's fancy. It represented in the centre an enormously
bloated infant with an idiotic leer, lying upon its back on a blue cloud
with scalloped edges, whilst two male angels, each with an extremely
vicious expression, were pulling the cloud along by means of tow-lines
attached to their wings. Underneath were these words in MS.: 'More
angels can be added, if desired, at an extra charge of 6d. each.'

No. 2 represented a disorderly flight of cherubims, savagely attacking a
sleeping infant in its cradle, which was supported on either hand by
two vulgar-looking female angels blowing bullock horns in an apathetic
manner.

No. 3 rather took my fancy--there was so much in it--four large fowls
flying across the empyrean; each bird carried a rose as large as a
cabbage in its beak, and apparently intended to let them drop upon
a group of family mourners beneath. The MS. inscribed said, 'If
photographs are supplied of members of the Mourning Family, our artist
will reproduce same in group gathered round the deceased. If doves are
not approved, cherubims, angels, or floral designs may be used instead,
for small extra charge.'

Whilst I was going through these horrors the old man kept up a babbling
commentary on their particular and collective beauties; then he wanted
me to look at his specimens of verse, much of which, he added, with
fatuous vanity, was his own composition.

I did read some of it, and felt a profound pity for the corpse that had
to submit to such degradation. Here are four specimens, the first of
which was marked, 'Especially suitable for a numerous family, who have
lost an aged parent, gold lettering is. 6d. extra,'--

'Mary and May and Peter and John [or other names]
Loved and honoured him [or her] who