mined to get even with that priest. But I had to think things over very carefully. You see if I objected to sleepin' in the same bed as the coffin, my friend the smug-faced merchant, who had really been kindness itself to me, might think I thought myself superior to sleepin' with his uncle, and that I knew would offend him, 'cos the Chinese seem to bear a most ridiculous respect towards their dead relations. So I decided that, come what might, I would certainly sleep there, and at the same time I hit upon a scheme for the undoin' of that priest.
"Next morning I woke up after a very pleasant sleep alongside that coffin, and felt much refreshed, though o' course I wasn't goin' to let 'em know that. When my friend asked me how I had slept I told him very badly, 'cos all through the night the old uncle in the coffin kept awakin' up and askin' if I would go and fetch the priest. So smug face sends round at once to sly dog for me to tell him all about it.
"'Did the late lamented uncle of this bereaved man really converse with thee in the night, O Englishman?' asked the priest, tryin' to look very knowin'. I was longin' to reply by givin' him one in his fat mouth, but I pulled myself together and answered very respectfully:
"'Of a truth did the late lamented uncle of this bereaved one'—a-jerkin' my thumb towards smug face—'converse with my contemptible self in the small hours of the dawn previous to the inestimable crowing
