'You mean the Rheumatism,' says Sapsea, in a sharp tone. (He is
nettled by having his composition so mechanically received.)

'No, I don't. I mean, Mr. Sapsea, the Tombatism. It's another
sort from Rheumatism. Mr. Jasper knows what Durdles means. You
get among them Tombs afore it's well light on a winter morning, and
keep on, as the Catechism says, a-walking in the same all the days
of your life, and YOU'LL know what Durdles means.'

'It is a bitter cold place,' Mr. Jasper assents, with an
antipathetic shiver.

'And if it's bitter cold for you, up in the chancel, with a lot of
live breath smoking out about you, what the bitterness is to
Durdles, down in the crypt among the earthy damps there, and the
dead breath of the old 'uns,' returns that individual, 'Durdles
leaves you to judge.--Is this to be put in hand at once, Mr.
Sapsea?'

Mr. Sapsea, with an Author's anxiety to rush into publication,
replies that it cannot be out of hand too soon.

'You had better let me have the key then,' says Durdles.

'Why, man, it is not to be put inside the monument!'

'Durdles knows where it's to be put, Mr. Sapsea; no man better.
Ask 'ere a man in Cloisterham whether Durdles knows his work.'

Mr. Sapsea rises, takes a key from a drawer, unlocks an iron safe