lofty deal desk," when he should have been imbibing Blackstone and
transcribing legal documents, he was studying Monsieur Vidocq and
translating the Welsh bard Ab Gwilym; he was consigning his legal career
to an early grave when he wrote this elegy on the worthy attorney his
master.

He has long since sunk to his place in a respectable vault, in the
aisle of a very respectable church, whilst an exceedingly respectable
marble slab against the neighbouring wall tells on a Sunday some eye
wandering from its prayer-book that his dust lies below. To secure
such respectabilities in death he passed a most respectable life, a
more respectable-looking individual never was seen.

In the meantime as a sequel to his questionings on the subjects of
reality and truth, the Author was asking himself "What is death?" and the
query serves as a prelude to the first of the many breezy dialogues with
that gipsy cousin-german to Autolycus, Jasper Petulengro.

"What is your opinion of death, Mr. Petulengro?"

"My opinion of death, brother, is much the same as that in the old
song of Pharaoh . . . when a man dies he is cast into the earth and
his wife and child sorrow over him. If he has neither wife nor child,
then his father and mother, I suppose; and if he is quite alone in the
world, why, then he is cast into the earth and there is an end of the
matter."

"And do you think that is the end of man?"

"There's an end of him, brother, more's the pity."