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Chapter 25
The Sexton Speaks
Funerals may be divided into three classes, for there be solemn funerals, there be grizzly funerals, and there be funny uns. The funniest funeral I ever did see was in China. Do you know, Captain, they very seldom buries out there? They leaves the blasted coffins above ground. The whole of the countryside is a-littered with em. For untidy burials China waves the flag, and they has other very funny customs about funerals out there, too. When a fellow goes and dies out there its a devil of a business he has to go through before he gets fixed up final. Every family out there as their own very particular priest,
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you understand, and this very particular priest is always a very sly sort o dog. The dead un is put into the coffin, and then the family pays their sly dog a considerable sum o money in exchange for very hard prayers wot the sly dog makes for em to his gods. He goes away and prays for weeks on end, askin his gods just where exactly the family ought to bury their dead un to enable him to get into heaven by the most convenient route. And as the sly dog gets paid all the time hes a-prayin, you can bet your wig that he pretends to string them prayers out to some length. And I can tell you those Chinese parsons were up to one or two smart wrinkles. Ill tell you about a certain Ling Fu Quong. Well, if I hadnt rung the curtain down, as the stage players say, upon that gents little comedy, I believes hed be drawin in a salary now for a fellow what died some forty years ago. You see it happened like this: I had had business deals on with a smug-faced Chinese merchant wot did business at Shanghai. Well, when I was about to sail for the old country, old smug face came to say how sorry he
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was I was a-goin to leave, and hoped hed have the pleasure of doin business with me again when I come back. Well, we started talkin and I told him that I should very much like to see a Chinese funeral, and old smug face said that he would gladly oblige me, because a very particular old uncle of his had died and his funeral was shortly to take place. Well, the upshot of it all was that I was invited to go up the river on smug faces boat to Soochow, where he lived and where his uncle had died, a city some sixty miles away or thereabouts. So there I accordingly went. Have you ever been on one o them large sampans, Captain? No? Well, its a long sort o boat, fitted up very snug indeed, with flowers all trailin over the side, and all fixed up to look like an old homestead sailin on the river. After a very pleasant tripand, Lord love you, I did make that old Chinaman laugh tellin him things, for I could speak their lingo very well, you understandwell, after a very pleasant trip we gets to Soochow, and a rummy old place it was. It stood right on top of the river, with its old walls runnin I accordingly went. Have you ever been on one o them large sampans, Captain? No? Well, its a long sort o boat, fitted up very snug indeed, with flowers all trailin over the side, and all fixed up to look like an old homestead sailin on the river. After a very pleasant tripand, Lord love you, I did make that old Chinaman laugh tellin him things, for I could speak their lingo very well, you understandwell, after a very pleasant trip we gets to Soochow, and a rummy old place it was. It stood right on top of the river, with its old walls runnin
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straight down into the muddy water. It was a strong town and important, a town of fighters and wealthy merchantmen. Well, they was all very pleased to see me and received me very proper. Most of em was alookin over the wall a-wavin flags at me, and them as adnt got none were a-wavin their pigtails. I might ave been the great Cham for all the fuss they made o me. O course, mind, you, I had my enemies. There was a sort o lord mayor o the place wot I could see didnt quite approve of me bein the nine days wonder, but he was one of them self-centered sort o coves wot dont like any one to have a fling but hisself. But I didnt mind him, for, although I was only a little fellow, I had an eye like a vulture, a nose like a swordfish, and when I was put out, a way of lashin myself about like a tigers tail wot used to scare them natives. O course, mind you, it wasnt pleasant when you come to think of it, cos there I was the only Englishman amongst them millions of yellow jacks. But an Englishmans an Englishman all the world over, aint he, Captain? and he ants
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a bit of squashin, and so that lord mayor discovered, cos one day I walked right up to him in the street and I clacked my teeth at him so very loud that he ran home and never annoyed me no more. But I was a-goin to tell you about that funeral. When we got to the front door of old smug faces house we discovered his uncles coffin reposin upon the doorstep very peaceful but in a most awkward sort of position, cos you had to crawl over the blarsted thing to get in or out o the door.
Lord love you, my most excellent Mipps, cried old smug face when he saw it, why, thisll never do, now will it, for my late lamented uncleI forget the uncles name but it was Ling somethingis fairly blocking up the entrance, aint he?
Ling Fu Quong, I replied, youve hit it, for if we as to do steeplechase over that there thing every time we wants to get out o doors for a breather, well, well fair tire ourselves out. And so old smug face agreed, and he
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accordingly sent for the family sly dog, by which I mean, o course, the family parson. Well, old sly dog arrived, and of all the fat, self-satisfied looking bouncers I ever seed, he took the cake. It was easy to see as how he made a good thing out of his job. Well, my old friend smug face begins telling him how awkward it was havin a coffin right across the front door, and old sly dog said as how he were very sorry, but it were just in that place wot the gods had told him to put it.
Dont you thing that if we were to offer sacred crackers to the gods that they might find as how theyve been mistook? suggested smug face.
Ill have a try, oh, bereaved one, answered sly dog, a-rubbin his fat hands with invisible soap, a habit he was very fond of practisin and a habit wot always sets my teeth on edge, soap bein to my mind such an unnecessary sort o institootion.
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So my old friend unlocks his treasure chest and forks out a regular kings ransom, which he gives to the sly priest to buy crackers with just to persuade the gods to change their minds. And I tells you that if old sly dog had really spent all that money in crackers, why, Gunpowder Plot wouldnt shave been in it. Anyhow, the priest left us with the money, and we spent the next few days aclimbin over that inconvenience whenever we ventured to go out or in doors. You must understand also that coffins out in China aint the neat sort of contrivance like weve got here. Oh, Lord love you, no, for all the great cumbersome family coaches I ever seed in the coffin line, them Chinese ones took the cake.
Well, in a few days back comes the sly dog lookin more prosperous than ever. It was very plain to see that hed ben havin a good time with that money, and if he had spent five minutes in prayers to his gods I should be very much surprised. Well, he tells my old friend the merchant as how we had to turn out
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of the house for that night, because the gods had promised to visit him that night if he stayed all alone along of the coffin, and they would then say whether it was possible for the coffin to be moved. So we had to turn out, much to my annoyance, and go to another house wot was owned by a friend of my smug-faced friend. Well, I wasnt particular about where we stopped, though I could see smug face didnt like turning out his house, but I felt annoyed to see how very easily he knuckled under to whatever the priest said. So we went away, as I say, for that night. Now the nights come up cold in China, and we both had got two very snivelly noses wot had been brought on by the draughts through not being able to shut that front door. Next morning sly dog came round to say that the gods would visit the house every night and see just where they could order the coffin to be moved to, and in the meantime sly dog was to spend his days and nights in the house, and a very comfortable time he had of it, you may