'I dare say they're all right in their way, but with these foreigners you don't feel they're gentlemen. I don't know what it is, but there's something, you understand, don't you? And I do like a man to be a gentleman. I thank God I'm an Englishman!'
IV
Now, it chanced one day that the senior partner of the firm was summoned to serve on a jury at a coroner's inquest, and Mr Clinton, furnished with the excuse that Mr Haynes was out of town, was told to go in his stead. Mr Clinton had never performed that part of a citizen's duties, for on becoming a householder he had hit upon the expedient of being summoned for his rates, so that his name should be struck off the coroner's list; he was very indifferent to the implied dishonour. It was with some curiosity, therefore, that he repaired to the court on the morning of the inquest.
The weather was cold and grey, and a drizzling rain was falling. Mr Clinton did not take a 'bus, since by walking he could put in his pocket the threepence which he meant to charge the firm for his fare. The streets were wet and muddy, and people walked close against the houses to avoid the splash of passing vehicles. Mr Clinton thought of the jocose solicitor who was in the habit of taking an articled clerk with him on muddy days, to walk on the outside of the street and protect his master from the flying mud. The story particularly appealed to Mr Clinton; that solicitor must have been a fine man of business. As he walked leisurely along under his umbrella, Mr Clinton looked without envy upon the city men who drove along in hansoms.
'Some of us,' he said, 'are born great, others achieve greatness. A man like that'--he pointed with his mind's finger at a passing alderman--'a man like that can go about in 'is carriage and nobody can say anything against it. 'E's worked 'imself up from the bottom.'
But when he came down Parliament Street to Westminster Abbey he felt a different atmosphere, and he was roused to Jeremiac indignation at the sight, in a passing cab, of a gilded youth in an opera hat, with his coat buttoned up to hide his dress clothes.
'That's the sort of young feller I can't abide,' said Mr Clinton. 'And if I was a member of Parliament I'd stop it. That's what comes of 'aving too much money and nothing to do. If I was a member of the aristocracy I'd give my sons five years in an accountant's office. There's nothing like a sound business training for making a man.' He paused in the road and waved his disengaged hand. 'Now, what should I be if I 'adn't 'ad a sound business training?'
Mr Clinton arrived at the mortuary, a gay red and white building, which had been newly erected and consecrated by a duke with much festivity and rejoicing. Mr Clinton was sworn with the other jurymen, and with them repaired to see the bodies on which they were to sit. But Mr Clinton was squeamish.
'I don't like corpses,' he said. 'I object to them on principle.'
He was told he must look at them.
'Very well,' said Mr Clinton. 'You can take a 'orse to the well but you can't make 'im drink.' When it came to his turn to look through the pane of glass behind which was the body, he shut his eyes.
'I can't say I'm extra gone on corpses,' he said, as they walked back to the Court. 'The smell of them ain't what you might call
'Well, gentlemen,' said the coroner, rubbing his hands, 'we've only got three cases this morning, so I sha'n't have to keep you long. And they all seem to be quite simple.'
V
The first was an old man of seventy; he had been a respectable, hard-working man till two years before, when a paralytic stroke had rendered one side of him completely powerless. He lost his work. He was alone in the world--his wife was dead, and his only daughter had not been heard of for thirty years--and gradually he had spent his little savings; one by one he sent his belongings to the pawn shop, his pots and pans, his clothes, his arm-chair, finally his bedstead, then he died. The doctor said the man was terribly emaciated, his stomach was shrivelled up for want of food, he could have eaten nothing for two days before death.... The jury did not trouble to leave the box; the foreman merely turned round and whispered to them a minute; they all nodded, and a verdict was returned in accordance with the doctor's evidence!
The next inquiry was upon a child of two. The coroner leant his head wearily on his hand, such cases were so common! The babe's mother came forward to give her evidence--a pale little woman, with thin and hollow cheeks, her eyes red and dim with weeping. She sobbed as she told the coroner that her husband had left her, and she was obliged to support herself and two children. She was out of work, and food had been rather scanty; she had suckled the dead baby as long as she could, but her milk dried up. Two days before, on waking up in the morning, the child she held in her arms was cold and dead. The doctor shrugged his shoulders. Want of food! And the jury returned their verdict, framed in a beautiful and elaborate sentence, in accordance with the evidence.
The last case was a girl of twenty. She had been found in the Thames; a bargee told how he saw a confused black mass floating on the water, and he put a boat-hook in the skirt, tying the body up to the boat while he called the police, he was so used to such things! In the girl's pocket was found a pathetic little letter to the coroner, begging his pardon for the trouble she was causing, saying she had been sent away from her place, and was starving, and had resolved to put an end to her troubles by throwing herself in the river. She was pregnant. The medical man stated that there were signs on the body of very great privation, so the jury returned a verdict that the deceased had committed suicide whilst in a state of temporary insanity!
The coroner stretched his arms and blew his nose, and the jury went their way.
But Mr Clinton stood outside the mortuary door, meditating, and the coroner's officer remarked that it was a wet day.
'Could I 'ave another look at the bodies?' timidly asked the clerk, stirring himself out of his contemplation.
The coroner's officer looked at him with surprise, and laughed.
'Yes, if you like.'
Mr Clinton looked through the glass windows at the bodies, and he carefully examined their faces; he looked at them one after another slowly, and it seemed as if he could not tear himself away. Finally he turned round, his face was very pale, and it had quite a strange expression on it; he felt very sick.
'Thank you!' he said to the coroner's officer, and walked away. But after a few steps he turned back, touching the man on the arm. 'D'you 'ave many cases like that?' he asked.
'Why, you look quite upset,' said the coroner's officer, with amusement. 'I can see you're not used to such
