Chapter XI. Our Dear Brother

by Charles Dickens

　　A touch on the lawyer's wrinkled hand as he stands in the dark room,irresolute, makes him start and say, "What's that?""It's me," returns the old man of the house, whose breath is in hisear. "Can't you wake him?""No.""What have you done with your candle?""It's gone out. Here it is."Krook takes it, goes to the fire, stoops over the red embers, andtries to get a light. The dying ashes have no light to spare, andhis endeavours are vain. Muttering, after an ineffectual call tohis lodger, that he will go downstairs and bring a lighted candlefrom the shop, the old man departs. Mr. Tulkinghorn, for some newreason that he has, does not await his return in the room, but onthe stairs outside.The welcome light soon shines upon the wall, as Krook comes slowlyup with his green-eyed cat following at his heels. "Does the mangenerally sleep like this?" inquired the lawyer in a low voice."Hi! I don't know," says Krook, shaking his head and lifting hiseyebrows. "I know next to nothing of his habits except that hekeeps himself very close."Thus whispering, they both go in together. As the light goes in,the great eyes in the shutters, darkening, seem to close. Not sothe eyes upon the bed."God save us!" exclaims Mr. Tulkinghorn. "He is dead!" Krook dropsthe heavy hand he has taken up so suddenly that the arm swings overthe bedside.They look at one another for a moment."Send for some doctor! Call for Miss Flite up the stairs, sir.Here's poison by the bed! Call out for Flite, will you?" saysKrook, with his lean hands spread out above the body like avampire's wings.Mr. Tulkinghorn hurries to the landing and calls, "Miss Flite!Flite! Make haste, here, whoever you are! Flite!" Krook followshim with his eyes, and while he is calling, finds opportunity tosteal to the old portmanteau and steal back again."Run, Flite, run! The nearest doctor! Run!" So Mr. Krookaddresses a crazy little woman who is his female lodger, who appearsand vanishes in a breath, who soon returns accompanied by a testymedical man brought from his dinner, with a broad, snuffy upper lipand a broad Scotch tongue."Ey! Bless the hearts o' ye," says the medical man, looking up atthem after a moment's examination. "He's just as dead as Phairy!"Mr. Tulkinghorn (standing by the old portmanteau) inquires if he hasbeen dead any time."Any time, sir?" says the medical gentleman. "It's probable he wullhave been dead aboot three hours.""About that time, I should say," observes a dark young man on theother side of the bed."Air you in the maydickle prayfession yourself, sir?" inquires thefirst.The dark young man says yes."Then I'll just tak' my depairture," replies the other, "for I'm naegude here!" With which remark he finishes his brief attendance andreturns to finish his dinner.The dark young surgeon passes the candle across and across the faceand carefully examines the law-writer, who has established hispretensions to his name by becoming indeed No one."I knew this person by sight very well," says he. "He has purchasedopium of me for the last year and a half. Was anybody presentrelated to him?" glancing round upon the three bystanders."I was his landlord," grimly answers Krook, taking the candle fromthe surgeon's outstretched hand. "He told me once I was the nearestrelation he had.""He has died," says the surgeon, "of an over-dose of opium, there isno doubt. The room is strongly flavoured with it. There is enoughhere now," taking an old teapot from Mr. Krook, "to kill a dozenpeople.""Do you think he did it on purpose?" asks Krook."Took the over-dose?""Yes!" Krook almost smacks his lips with the unction of a horribleinterest."I can't say. I should think it unlikely, as he has been in thehabit of taking so much. But nobody can tell. He was very poor, Isuppose?""I suppose he was. His room--don't look rich," says Krook, whomight have changed eyes with his cat, as he casts his sharp glancearound. "But I have never been in it since he had it, and he wastoo close to name his circumstances to me.""Did he owe you any rent?""Six weeks.""He will never pay it!" says the young man, resuming hisexamination. "It is beyond a doubt that he is indeed as dead asPharaoh; and to judge from his appearance and condition, I shouldthink it a happy release. Yet he must have been a good figure whena youth, and I dare say, good-looking." He says this, notunfeelingly, while sitting on the bedstead's edge with his facetowards that other face and his hand upon the region of the heart."I recollect once thinking there was something in his manner,uncouth as it was, that denoted a fall in life. Was that so?" hecontinues, looking round.Krook replies, "You might as well ask me to describe the ladieswhose heads of hair I have got in sacks downstairs. Than that hewas my lodger for a year and a half and lived--or didn't live--bylaw-writing, I know no more of him."During this dialogue Mr. Tulkinghorn has stood aloof by the oldportmanteau, with his hands behind him, equally removed, to allappearance, from all three kinds of interest exhibited near thebed--from the young surgeon's professional interest in death,noticeable as being quite apart from his remarks on the deceased asan individual; from the old man's unction; and the little crazywoman's awe. His imperturbable face has been as inexpressive ashis rusty clothes. One could not even say he has been thinking allthis while. He has shown neither patience nor impatience, norattention nor abstraction. He has shown nothing but his shell. Aseasily might the tone of a delicate musical instrument be inferredfrom its case, as the tone of Mr. Tulkinghorn from his case.He now interposes, addressing the young surgeon in his unmoved,professional way."I looked in here," he observes, "just before you, with theintention of giving this deceased man, whom I never saw alive, someemployment at his trade of copying. I had heard of him from mystationer--Snagsby of Cook's Court. Since no one here knowsanything about him, it might be as well to send for Snagsby. Ah!"to the little crazy woman, who has often seen him in court, andwhom he has often seen, and who proposes, in frightened dumb-show,to go for the law-stationer. "Suppose you do!"While she is gone, the surgeon abandons his hopeless investigationand covers its subject with the patchwork counterpane. Mr. Krookand he interchange a word or two. Mr. Tulkinghorn says nothing,but stands, ever, near the old portmanteau.Mr. Snagsby arrives hastily in his grey coat and his black sleeves."Dear me, dear me," he says; "and it has come to this, has it!Bless my soul!""Can you give the person of the house any information about thisunfortunate creature, Snagsby?" inquires Mr. Tulkinghorn. "He wasin arrears with his rent, it seems. And he must be buried, youknow.""Well, sir," says Mr. Snagsby, coughing his apologetic cough behindhis hand, "I really don't know what advice I could offer, exceptsending for the beadle.""I don't speak of advice," returns Mr. Tulkinghorn. "I couldadvise--""No one better, sir, I am sure," says Mr. Snagsby, with hisdeferential cough."I speak of affording some clue to his connexions, or to where hecame from, or to anything concerning him.""I assure you, sir," says Mr. Snagsby after prefacing his replywith his cough of general propitiation, "that I no more know wherehe came from than I know--""Where he has gone to, perhaps," suggests the surgeon to help himout.A pause. Mr. Tulkinghorn looking at the law-stationer. Mr. Krook,with his mouth open, looking for somebody to speak next."As to his connexions, sir," says Mr. Snagsby, "if a person was tosay to me, "Snagsby, here's twenty thousand pound down, ready foryou in the Bank of England if you'll only name one of 'em,' Icouldn't do it, sir! About a year and a half ago--to the best of mybelief, at the time when he first came to lodge at the present ragand bottle shop--""That was the time!" says Krook with a nod."About a year and a half ago," says Mr. Snagsby, strengthened, "hecame into our place one morning after breakfast, and finding mylittle woman (which I name Mrs. Snagsby when I use that appellation)in our shop, produced a specimen of his handwriting and gave her tounderstand that he was in want of copying work to do and was, not toput too fine a point upon it," a favourite apology for plainspeaking with Mr. Snagsby, which he always offers with a sort ofargumentative frankness, "hard up! My little woman is not ingeneral partial to strangers, particular--not to put too fine apoint upon it--when they want anything. But she was rather took bysomething about this person, whether by his being unshaved, or byhis hair being in want of attention, or by what other ladies'reasons, I leave you to judge; and she accepted of the specimen, andlikewise of the address. My little woman hasn't a good ear fornames," proceeds Mr. Snagsby after consulting his cough ofconsideration behind his hand, "and she considered Nemo equally thesame as Nimrod. In consequence of which, she got into a habit ofsaying to me at meals, 'Mr. Snagsby, you haven't found Nimrod anywork yet!' or 'Mr. Snagsby, why didn't you give that eight andthirty Chancery folio in Jarndyce to Nimrod?' or such like. Andthat is the way he gradually fell into job-work at our place; andthat is the most I know of him except that he was a quick hand, anda hand not sparing of night-work, and that if you gave him out, say,five and forty folio on the Wednesday night, you would have itbrought in on the Thursday morning. All of which--" Mr. Snagsbyconcludes by politely motioning with his hat towards the bed, asmuch as to add, "I have no doubt my honourable friend would confirmif he were in a condition to do it.""Hadn't you better see," says Mr. Tulkinghorn to Krook, "whether hehad any papers that may enlighten you? There will be an inquest,and you will be asked the question. You can read?""No, I can't," returns the old man with a sudden grin."Snagsby," says Mr. Tulkinghorn, "look over the room for him. Hewill get into some trouble or difficulty otherwise. Being here,I'll wait if you make haste, and then I can testify on his behalf,if it should ever be necessary, that all was fair and right. If youwill hold the candle for Mr. Snagsby, my friend, he'll soon seewhether there is anything to help you.""In the first place, here's an old portmanteau, sir," says Snagsby.Ah, to be sure, so there is! Mr. Tulkinghorn does not appear tohave seen it before, though he is standing so close to it, andthough there is very little else, heaven knows.The marine-store merchant holds the light, and the law-stationerconducts the search. The surgeon leans against the corner of thechimney-piece; Miss Flite peeps and trembles just within the door.The apt old scholar of the old school, with his dull black breechestied with ribbons at the knees, his large black waistcoat, his long-sleeved black coat, and his wisp of limp white neckerchief tied inthe bow the peerage knows so well, stands in exactly the same placeand attitude.There are some worthless articles of clothing in the oldportmanteau; there is a bundle of pawnbrokers' duplicates, thoseturnpike tickets on the road of poverty; there is a crumpled paper,smelling of opium, on which are scrawled rough memoranda--as, took,such a day, so many grains; took, such another day, so many more--begun some time ago, as if with the intention of being regularlycontinued, but soon left off. There are a few dirty scraps ofnewspapers, all referring to coroners' inquests; there is nothingelse. They search the cupboard and the drawer of the ink-splashedtable. There is not a morsel of an old letter or of any otherwriting in either. The young surgeon examines the dress on the law-writer. A knife and some odd halfpence are all he finds. Mr.Snagsby's suggestion is the practical suggestion after all, and thebeadle must be called in.So the little crazy lodger goes for the beadle, and the rest comeout of the room. "Don't leave the cat there!" says the surgeon;"that won't do!" Mr. Krook therefore drives her out before him, andshe goes furtively downstairs, winding her lithe tail and lickingher lips."Good night!" says Mr. Tulkinghorn, and goes home to Allegory andmeditation.By this time the news has got into the court. Groups of itsinhabitants assemble to discuss the thing, and the outposts of thearmy of observation (principally boys) are pushed forward to Mr.Krook's window, which they closely invest. A policeman has alreadywalked up to the room, and walked down again to the door, where hestands like a tower, only condescending to see the boys at his baseoccasionally; but whenever he does see them, they quail and fallback. Mrs. Perkins, who has not been for some weeks on speakingterms with Mrs. Piper in consequence for an unpleasantnessoriginating in young Perkins' having "fetched" young Piper "acrack," renews her friendly intercourse on this auspicious occasion.The potboy at the corner, who is a privileged amateur, as possessingofficial knowledge of life and having to deal with drunken menoccasionally, exchanges confidential communications with thepoliceman and has the appearance of an impregnable youth,unassailable by truncheons and unconfinable in station-houses.People talk across the court out of window, and bare-headed scoutscome hurrying in from Chancery Lane to know what's the matter. Thegeneral feeling seems to be that it's a blessing Mr. Krook warn'tmade away with first, mingled with a little natural disappointmentthat he was not. In the midst of this sensation, the beadlearrives.The beadle, though generally understood in the neighbourhood to be aridiculous institution, is not without a certain popularity for themoment, if it were only as a man who is going to see the body. Thepoliceman considers him an imbecile civilian, a remnant of thebarbarous watchmen times, but gives him admission as something thatmust be borne with until government shall abolish him. Thesensation is heightened as the tidings spread from mouth to mouththat the beadle is on the ground and has gone in.By and by the beadle comes out, once more intensifying thesensation, which has rather languished in the interval. He isunderstood to be in want of witnesses for the inquest to-morrow whocan tell the coroner and jury anything whatever respecting thedeceased. Is immediately referred to innumerable people who cantell nothing whatever. Is made more imbecile by being constantlyinformed that Mrs. Green's son "was a law-writer his-self and knowedhim better than anybody," which son of Mrs. Green's appears, oninquiry, to be at the present time aboard a vessel bound for China,three months out, but considered accessible by telegraph onapplication to the Lords of the Admiralty. Beadle goes into variousshops and parlours, examining the inhabitants, always shutting thedoor first, and by exclusion, delay, and general idiotcyexasperating the public. Policeman seen to smile to potboy. Publicloses interest and undergoes reaction. Taunts the beadle in shrillyouthful voices with having boiled a boy, choruses fragments of apopular song to that effect and importing that the boy was made intosoup for the workhouse. Policeman at last finds it necessary tosupport the law and seize a vocalist, who is released upon theflight of the rest on condition of his getting out of this then,come, and cutting it--a condition he immediately observes. So thesensation dies off for the time; and the unmoved policeman (to whoma little opium, more or less, is nothing), with his shining hat,stiff stock, inflexible great-coat, stout belt and bracelet, and allthings fitting, pursues his lounging way with a heavy tread, beatingthe palms of his white gloves one against the other and stopping nowand then at a street-corner to look casually about for anythingbetween a lost child and a murder.Under cover of the night, the feeble-minded beadle comes flittingabout Chancery Lane with his summonses, in which every juror's nameis wrongly spelt, and nothing rightly spelt but the beadle's ownname, which nobody can read or wants to know. The summonses servedand his witnesses forewarned, the beadle goes to Mr. Krook's to keepa small appointment he has made with certain paupers, who, presentlyarriving, are conducted upstairs, where they leave the great eyes inthe shutter something new to stare at, in that last shape whichearthly lodgings take for No one--and for Every one.And all that night the coffin stands ready by the old portmanteau;and the lonely figure on the bed, whose path in life has lainthrough five and forty years, lies there with no more track behindhim that any one can trace than a deserted infant.Next day the court is all alive--is like a fair, as Mrs. Perkins,more than reconciled to Mrs. Piper, says in amicable conversationwith that excellent woman. The coroner is to sit in the first-floorroom at the Sol's Arms, where the Harmonic Meetings take place twicea week and where the chair is filled by a gentleman of professionalcelebrity, faced by Little Swills, the comic vocalist, who hopes(according to the bill in the window) that his friends will rallyround him and support first-rate talent. The Sol's Arms does abrisk stroke of business all the morning. Even children so requiresustaining under the general excitement that a pieman who hasestablished himself for the occasion at the corner of the court sayshis brandy-balls go off like smoke. What time the beadle, hoveringbetween the door of Mr. Krook's establishment and the door of theSol's Arms, shows the curiosity in his keeping to a few discreetspirits and accepts the compliment of a glass of ale or so inreturn.At the appointed hour arrives the coroner, for whom the jurymen arewaiting and who is received with a salute of skittles from the gooddry skittle-ground attached to the Sol's Arms. The coronerfrequents more public-houses than any man alive. The smell ofsawdust, beer, tobacco-smoke, and spirits is inseparable in hisvocation from death in its most awful shapes. He is conducted bythe beadle and the landlord to the Harmonic Meeting Room, where heputs his hat on the piano and takes a Windsor-chair at the head of along table formed of several short tables put together andornamented with glutinous rings in endless involutions, made by potsand glasses. As many of the jury as can crowd together at the tablesit there. The rest get among the spittoons and pipes or leanagainst the piano. Over the coroner's head is a small iron garland,the pendant handle of a bell, which rather gives the majesty of thecourt the appearance of going to be hanged presently.Call over and swear the jury! While the ceremony is in progress,sensation is created by the entrance of a chubby little man in alarge shirt-collar, with a moist eye and an inflamed nose, whomodestly takes a position near the door as one of the generalpublic, but seems familiar with the room too. A whisper circulatesthat this is Little Swills. It is considered not unlikely that hewill get up an imitation of the coroner and make it the principalfeature of the Harmonic Meeting in the evenlng."Well, gentlemen--" the coroner begins."Silence there, will you!" says the beadle. Not to the coroner,though it might appear so."Well, gentlemen," resumes the coroner. "You are impanelled here toinquire into the death of a certain man. Evidence will be givenbefore you as to the circumstances attending that death, and youwill give your verdict according to the--skittles; they must bestopped, you know, beadle!--evidence, and not according to anythingelse. The first thing to be done is to view the body.""Make way there!" cries the beadle.So they go out in a loose procession, something after the manner ofa straggling funeral, and make their inspection in Mr. Krook's backsecond floor, from which a few of the jurymen retire pale andprecipitately. The beadle is very careful that two gentlemen notvery neat about the cuffs and buttons (for whose accommodation hehas provided a special little table near the coroner in the HarmonicMeeting Room) should see all that is to be seen. For they are thepublic chroniclers of such inquiries by the line; and he is notsuperior to the universal human infirmity, but hopes to read inprint what "Mooney, the active and intelligent beadle of thedistrict," said and did and even aspires to see the name of Mooneyas familiarly and patronizingly mentioned as the name of the hangmanis, according to the latest examples.Little Swills is waiting for the coroner and jury on their return.Mr. Tulkinghorn, also. Mr. Tulkinghorn is received with distinctionand seated near the coroner between that high judicial officer, abagatelle-board, and the coal-box. The inquiry proceeds. The jurylearn how the subject of their inquiry died, and learn no more abouthim. "A very eminent solicitor is in attendance, gentlemen," saysthe coroner, "who, I am informed, was accidentally present whendiscovery of the death was made, but he could only repeat theevidence you have already heard from the surgeon, the landlord, thelodger, and the law-stationer, and it is not necessary to troublehim. Is anybody in attendance who knows anything more?"Mrs. Piper pushed forward by Mrs. Perkins. Mrs. Piper sworn.Anastasia Piper, gentlemen. Married woman. Now, Mrs. Piper, whathave you got to say about this?Why, Mrs. Piper has a good deal to say, chiefly in parentheses andwithout punctuation, but not much to tell. Mrs. Piper lives in thecourt (which her husband is a cabinet-maker), and it has long beenwell beknown among the neighbours (counting from the day next butone before the half-baptizing of Alexander James Piper aged eighteenmonths and four days old on accounts of not being expected to livesuch was the sufferings gentlemen of that child in his gums) as theplaintive--so Mrs. Piper insists on calling the deceased--wasreported to have sold himself. Thinks it was the plaintive's air inwhich that report originatinin. See the plaintive often andconsidered as his air was feariocious and not to be allowed to goabout some children being timid (and if doubted hoping Mrs. Perkinsmay be brought forard for she is here and will do credit to herhusband and herself and family). Has seen the plaintive wexed andworrited by the children (for children they will ever be and youcannot expect them specially if of playful dispositions to beMethoozellers which you was not yourself). On accounts of this andhis dark looks has often dreamed as she see him take a pick-axe fromhis pocket and split Johnny's head (which the child knows not fearand has repeatually called after him close at his eels). Neverhowever see the plaintive take a pick-axe or any other wepping farfrom it. Has seen him hurry away when run and called after as ifnot partial to children and never see him speak to neither child norgrown person at any time (excepting the boy that sweeps the crossingdown the lane over the way round the corner which if he was herewould tell you that he has been seen a-speaking to him frequent).Says the coroner, is that boy here? Says the beadle, no, sir, he isnot here. Says the coroner, go and fetch him then. In the absenceof the active and intelligent, the coroner converses with Mr.Tulkinghorn.Oh! Here's the boy, gentlemen!Here he is, very muddy, very hoarse, very ragged. Now, boy! Butstop a minute. Caution. This boy must be put through a fewpreliminary paces.Name, Jo. Nothing else that he knows on. Don't know that everybodyhas two names. Never heerd of sich a think. Don't know that Jo isshort for a longer name. Thinks it long enough for him. He don'tfind no fault with it. Spell it? No. He can't spell it. Nofather, no mother, no friends. Never been to school. What's home?Knows a broom's a broom, and knows it's wicked to tell a lie. Don'trecollect who told him about the broom or about the lie, but knowsboth. Can't exactly say what'll be done to him arter he's dead ifhe tells a lie to the gentlemen here, but believes it'll besomething wery bad to punish him, and serve him right--and so he'lltell the truth."This won't do, gentlemen!" says the coroner with a melancholy shakeof the head."Don't you think you can receive his evidence, sir?" asks anattentive juryman."Out of the question," says the coroner. "You have heard the boy.'Can't exactly say' won't do, you know. We can't take that in acourt of justice, gentlemen. It's terrible depravity. Put the boyaside."Boy put aside, to the great edification of the audience, especiallyof Little Swills, the comic vocalist.Now. Is there any other witness? No other witness.Very well, gentlemen! Here's a man unknown, proved to have been inthe habit of taking opium in large quantities for a year and a half,found dead of too much opium. If you think you have any evidence tolead you to the conclusion that he committed suicide, you will cometo that conclusion. If you think it is a case of accidental death,you will find a verdict accordingly.Verdict accordingly. Accidental death. No doubt. Gentlemen, youare discharged. Good afternoon.While the coroner buttons his great-coat, Mr. Tulkinghorn and hegive private audience to the rejected witness in a corner.That graceless creature only knows that the dead man (whom herecognized just now by his yellow face and black hair) was sometimeshooted and pursued about the streets. That one cold winter nightwhen he, the boy, was shivering in a doorway near his crossing, theman turned to look at him, and came back, and having questioned himand found that he had not a friend in the world, said, "Neither haveI. Not one!" and gave him the price of a supper and a night'slodging. That the man had often spoken to him since and asked himwhether he slept sound at night, and how he bore cold and hunger,and whether he ever wished to die, and similar strange questions.That when the man had no money, he would say in passing, "I am aspoor as you to-day, Jo," but that when he had any, he had always (asthe boy most heartily believes) been glad to give him some."He was wery good to me," says the boy, wiping his eyes with hiswretched sleeve. "Wen I see him a-layin' so stritched out just now,I wished he could have heerd me tell him so. He wos wery good tome, he wos!"As he shuffles downstairs, Mr. Snagsby, lying in wait for him, putsa half-crown in his hand. "If you ever see me coming past yourcrossing with my little woman--I mean a lady--" says Mr. Snagsbywith his finger on his nose, "don't allude to it!"For some little time the jurymen hang about the Sol's Armscolloquially. In the sequel, half-a-dozen are caught up in a cloudof pipe-smoke that pervades the parlour of the Sol's Arms; twostroll to Hampstead; and four engage to go half-price to the play atnight, and top up with oysters. Little Swills is treated on severalhands. Being asked what he thinks of the proceedings, characterizesthem (his strength lying in a slangular direction) as "a rummystart." The landlord of the Sol's Arms, finding Little Swills sopopular, commends him highly to the jurymen and public, observingthat for a song in character he don't know his equal and that thatman's character-wardrobe would fill a cart.Thus, gradually the Sol's Arms melts into the shadowy night and thenflares out of it strong in gas. The Harmonic Meeting hour arriving,the gentleman of professional celebrity takes the chair, is faced(red-faced) by Little Swills; their friends rally round them andsupport first-rate talent. In the zenith of the evening, LittleSwills says, "Gentlemen, if you'll permit me, I'll attempt a shortdescription of a scene of real life that came off here to-day." Ismuch applauded and encouraged; goes out of the room as Swills; comesin as the coroner (not the least in the world like him); describesthe inquest, with recreative intervals of piano-forte accompaniment,to the refrain: With his (the coroner's) tippy tol li doll, tippytol lo doll, tippy tol li doll, Dee!The jingling piano at last is silent, and the Harmonic friends rallyround their pillows. Then there is rest around the lonely figure,now laid in its last earthly habitation; and it is watched by thegaunt eyes in the shutters through some quiet hours of night. Ifthis forlorn man could have been prophetically seen lying here bythe mother at whose breast he nestled, a little child, with eyesupraised to her loving face, and soft hand scarcely knowing how toclose upon the neck to which it crept, what an impossibility thevision would have seemed! Oh, if in brighter days the now-extinguished fire within him ever burned for one woman who held himin her heart, where is she, while these ashes are above the ground!It is anything but a night of rest at Mr. Snagsby's, in Cook'sCourt, where Guster murders sleep by going, as Mr. Snagsby himselfallows--not to put too fine a point upon it--out of one fit intotwenty. The occasion of this seizure is that Guster has a tenderheart and a susceptible something that possibly might have beenimagination, but for Tooting and her patron saint. Be it what itmay, now, it was so direfully impressed at tea-time by Mr. Snagsby'saccount of the inquiry at which he had assisted that at supper-timeshe projected herself into the kitchen, preceded by a flying Dutchcheese, and fell into a fit of unusual duration, which she only cameout of to go into another, and another, and so on through a chain offits, with short intervals between, of which she has patheticallyavailed herself by consuming them in entreaties to Mrs. Snagsby notto give her warning "when she quite comes to," and also in appealsto the whole establishment to lay her down on the stones and go tobed. Hence, Mr. Snagsby, at last hearing the cock at the littledairy in Cursitor Street go into that disinterested ecstasy of hison the subject of daylight, says, drawing a long breath, though themost patient of men, "I thought you was dead, I am sure!"What question this enthusiastic fowl supposes he settles when hestrains himself to such an extent, or why he should thus crow (somen crow on various triumphant public occasions, however) about whatcannot be of any moment to him, is his affair. It is enough thatdaylight comes, morning comes, noon comes.Then the active and intelligent, who has got into the morning papersas such, comes with his pauper company to Mr. Krook's and bears offthe body of our dear brother here departed to a hemmed-inchurchyard, pestiferous and obscene, whence malignant diseases arecommunicated to the bodies of our dear brothers and sisters who havenot departed, while our dear brothers and sisters who hang aboutofficial back-stairs--would to heaven they had departed!--are verycomplacent and agreeable. Into a beastly scrap of ground which aTurk would reject as a savage abomination and a Caffre would shudderat, they bring our dear brother here departed to receive Christianburial.With houses looking on, on every side, save where a reeking littletunnel of a court gives access to the iron gate--with every villainyof life in action close on death, and every poisonous element ofdeath in action close on life--here they lower our dear brother downa foot or two, here sow him in corruption, to be raised incorruption: an avenging ghost at many a sick-bedside, a shamefultestimony to future ages how civilization and barbarism walked thisboastful island together.Come night, come darkness, for you cannot come too soon or stay toolong by such a place as this! Come, straggling lights into thewindows of the ugly houses; and you who do iniquity therein, do itat least with this dread scene shut out! Come, flame of gas,burning so sullenly above the iron gate, on which the poisoned airdeposits its witch-ointment slimy to the touch! It is well that youshould call to every passerby, "Look here!"With the night comes a slouching figure through the tunnel-court tothe outside of the iron gate. It holds the gate with its hands andlooks in between the bars, stands looking in for a little while.It then, with an old broom it carries, softly sweeps the step andmakes the archway clean. It does so very busily and trimly, looksin again a little while, and so departs.Jo, is it thou? Well, well! Though a rejected witness, who "can'texactly say" what will be done to him in greater hands than men's,thou art not quite in outer darkness. There is something like adistant ray of light in thy muttered reason for this: "He wos werygood to me, he wos!"