when he comes home. D' ye think he will?'

Kilne muttered: 'Can't say !' and Grossby, a kindly creature in his way,
albeit a creditor, reverting to the first subject of their discourse,
ejaculated, 'But what a one he was!--eh?'

'Fine!--to look on,' Kilne assented.

'Well, he was like a Marquis,' said Barnes.

Here the three regarded each other, and laughed, though not loudly. They
instantly checked that unseemliness, and Kilne, as one who rises from the
depths of a calculation with the sum in his head, spoke quite in a
different voice:

'Well, what do you say, gentlemen? shall we adjourn? No use standing
here.'

By the invitation to adjourn, it was well understood by the committee
Kilne addressed, that they were invited to pass his threshold, and
partake of a morning draught. Barnes, the butcher, had no objection
whatever, and if Grossby, a man of milder make, entertained any, the
occasion and common interests to be discussed, advised him to waive them.
In single file these mourners entered the publican's house, where Kilne,
after summoning them from behind the bar, on the important question, what
it should be? and receiving, first, perfect acquiescence in his views as
to what it should be, and then feeble suggestions of the drink best
befitting that early hour and the speaker's particular constitution,
poured out a toothful to each, and one to himself.