But the other swallowed his wrath and announced coldly:
"I am Captain Collyer. Captain Howard Collyer, coast agent and commissioner; come ashore to lay a few of you by the heels, I've no doubt."
"Oh! is that all?" replied the sexton with a sigh of relief. "Well, there, I have been mistook. I'd quite made up my mind that you was the Grand Turk or at least the Lord Rear Admiral of the Scilly Isles."
Ignoring the sexton's humour, the captain turned to Denis and said: "Who is this person?"
But Mipps was not so easily crushed, and he cried: "A man to be looked up to in these parts. I undertakes for the district. The only one wot does it for miles round. They all comes to me, rich and poor alike, I tells you; for they know that Mipps knocks 'em up solid."
"Knocks what up solid?" demanded the captain furiously.
"Coffins up solid," replied the sexton promptly.
"Coffins!" repeated the captain. "Oh, you're a coffin-maker, are you? Yes, you look it. Thought you might be the landlord of this run-amuck old inn here. That's the man I want. Where can I find him?"
Mipps pointed out of the window toward the church.
"Up in the churchyard," he said.
"What's he doing in the churchyard?" demanded the captain.
