if that light in her hands, and she know the business you come about, without consulting the stars, I can assure you it will be employed very much to the detriment of your person.--Sir, cries he, bowing with great civility, I perceive extreme grief for the loss of the doctor disorders you a little at present, but early in the morning I will wait on you with all the necessary materials.... “Well, once more I got my door closed, and prepared for bed, in hopes of a little repose after so many ruffling adventures; just as I was putting out my light in order to it, another bounces as hard as he can knock; I open the window and ask who is there and what he wants? I am Ned, the sexton, replies he, and come to know whether the doctor left any orders for a funeral sermon, and where he is to be laid, and whether his grave is to be plain or bricked?--Why, sirrah, say I, you know me well enough; you know I am not dead, and how dare you affront me after this manner?--Alackaday, sir, replies the fellow, why it is in print, and the whole town knows you are dead; why, there is Mr. White, the joiner, is fitting screws to your coffin; he will be here with it in an instant: he was afraid you would have wanted it before this time.... In short, what with undertakers, embalmers, joiners, sextons, and your damned elegy hawkers upon a late practitioner in physic and astrology, I got not one wink of sleep the whole night, nor scarce a moment’s rest ever since.... “I could not stir out of doors for the space of three months after this, but presently one comes up to me in the street, Mr. Partridge, that coffin you was last buried in, I have not yet been paid for: Doctor, cries another dog, how do you think people can live by making of graves for nothing? next time you die, you may even toll out the bell yourself for Ned. A third rogue tips me by the elbow, and wonders how I have the conscience to sneak abroad without paying my funeral expenses.--Lord, says one, I durst have swore that was honest Dr. Partridge, my old friend, but, poor man, he is gone.--I beg your pardon, says another, you look so like my old acquaintance that I used to consult on some private occasions; but, alack, he is gone the way of all flesh.--Look, look, look, cries a third, after a competent space of staring at me, would not one think our neighbour, the almanack-maker, was crept out of his grave, to take the other peep at the stars in this world, and shew how much he is improved in fortune-telling by having taken a journey to the other?... “My poor wife is run almost distracted with being called widow Partridge, when she knows it is false; and once a term she is cited into the court to take out letters of administration. But the greatest grievance is a paltry quack that takes up my calling just under my nose, and in his printed directions, with N. B.--says he lives in the house of the late ingenious Mr. John Partridge, an eminent practitioner in leather, physic, and astrology....”