and loosened his cravat with a hasty pull. "You're the coroner," said
he.

"I! What do you mean?"

"Yes, you're the coroner; don't you understand?" and so saying, he
shoved the gold pieces toward me.

"Very good," said I; "we will suppose I'm the coroner. What next?"

"And being the coroner," said he, "you get this note, which requests you
to call at No. 9 Blank street to examine the body of a young man which
is supposed--only supposed, you see--to have--well, to have died under
suspicious circumstances."

"Go on," said I.

"No," he returned; "not till I know how you like it. Stagers and another
knows it; and it wouldn't be very safe for you to split, besides not
making nothing out of it. But what I say is this, Do you like the
business of coroner?"

I did not like it; but just then two hundred in gold was life to me, so
I said: "Let me hear the whole of it first. I am safe."

"That's square enough," said the man. "My wife's got"--correcting
himself with a shivery shrug--"my wife had a brother that took to
cutting up rough because when I'd been up too late I handled her a
leetle hard now and again.