XXV
The Sexton Speaks
“Funerals may be divided into three classes, for there be solemn funerals, there be grisly 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 it’s 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, 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 he’s 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. I’ll tell you about a certain Ling Fu Quong. Well, if I hadn’t rung the curtain down, as the stage players say, upon that gent’s little comedy, I believes he’d 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 was I was a-goin’ to leave, and hoped he’d 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 face’s 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, it’s 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 trip—and, Lord love you, I did make that old Chinaman laugh tellin’ him things, for I could speak their lingo very well, you understand—well, 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’ 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 a-lookin’ over the wall a-wavin’ flags at me, and them as ’adn’t 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 didn’t quite approve of me bein’ the nine days’ wonder, but he was one of them self-centred sort o’ coves wot don’t like anyone to have a fling but hisself. But I didn’t 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 tiger’s tail wot used to scare them natives. O’ course, mind you, it wasn’t pleasant when you come to think of it, ’cos there I was the only Englishman amongst them millions of yellow jacks. But an Englishman’s an Englishman all the world over, ain’t he, Captain? and he wants 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 face’s house we discovered his uncle’s 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
