“ ‘Ling Fu Quong,’ I replied, ‘you’ve 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, we’ll fair tire ourselves out.’ And so old smug face agreed, and he 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.
“ ‘Don’t you think that if we were to offer sacred crackers to the gods that they might find as how they’ve been mistook?’ suggested smug face.
“ ‘I’ll 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.
“So my old friend unlocks his treasure chest and forks out a regular king’s 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 wouldn’t have been in it. Anyhow, the priest left us with the money, and we spent the next few days a-climbin’ over that inconvenience whenever we ventured to go out or in doors. You must understand also that coffins out in China ain’t the neat sort of contrivance like we’ve got here. Oh, Lord love you, no, for of 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 me that he’d been 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 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 wasn’t particular about where we stopped, though I could see smug face didn’t 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 be sure, for my friend the merchant had got a house well stored with very good things.
“At the end of a week sly dog comes round to say that the gods had decided to move the coffin, and that he had seen their orders carried out. So after giving him more money, much to my indignation, for I couldn’t bear to see my friend imposed upon, we left him and set off for the house. And where do you think that dirty fat priest had put that coffin?”
“Where?” queried the captain.
“Why, in the bed where I was supposed to sleep. Now this really did rouse the devil in me, and I determined to get even with that priest. But I had to think things over very carefully. You see if I objected to sleepin’ in the same bed as the coffin, my friend the smug-faced merchant, who had really been kindness itself to me, might think I thought myself superior to sleepin’ with his uncle, and that I knew would offend him, ’cos the Chinese seem to bear a most ridiculous respect towards their dead relations. So I decided that, come what might, I would certainly sleep there, and at the same time I hit upon a scheme for the undoin’ of that priest.
“Next morning I woke up after a very pleasant sleep alongside that coffin, and felt much refreshed, though o’ course I wasn’t goin’ to let ’em know that. When my friend asked me how I had slept I told him very badly, ’cos all through the night the old uncle in the coffin kept awakin’ up and askin’ if I would go and fetch the priest. So smug face sends round at once to sly dog for me to tell him all about it.
“ ‘Did the late lamented uncle of this bereaved man really converse with thee in the night, O Englishman?’ asked the priest, tryin’ to look very knowin’. I was longin’ to reply by givin’ him one in his fat mouth, but I pulled myself together and answered very respectfully:
“ ‘Of a truth did the late lamented uncle
