“_Familiar in their Mouths as HOUSEHOLD WORDS._”—SHAKESPEARE. HOUSEHOLD WORDS. A WEEKLY JOURNAL. CONDUCTED BY CHARLES DICKENS. N^{o.} 11.] SATURDAY, JUNE 8, 1850. [PRICE 2_d._ FROM THE RAVEN IN THE HAPPY FAMILY. Halloa! You _won’t_ let me begin that Natural History of you, eh? You _will_ always be doing something or other, to take off my attention? Now, you have begun to argue with the Undertakers, have you? What next! Ugh! you are a nice set of fellows to be discussing, at this time of day, whether you shall countenance that humbug any longer. “Performing” funerals, indeed! I have heard of performing dogs and cats, performing goats and monkeys, performing ponies, white-mice, and canary-birds; but, performing drunkards at so much a day, guzzling over your dead, and throwing half of you into debt for a twelvemonth, beats all I ever heard of. Ha, ha! The other day there was a person “went and died” (as our Proprietor’s wife says) close to our establishment. Upon my beak I thought I should have fallen off my perch, you made me laugh so, at the funeral! Oh my crop and feathers, what a scene it was! _I_ never saw the Owl so charmed. It was just the thing for him. First of all, two dressed-up fellows came—trying to look sober, but they couldn’t do it—and stuck themselves outside the door. There they stood, for hours, with a couple of crutches covered over with drapery: cutting their jokes on the company as they went in, and breathing such strong rum and water into our establishment over the way, that the Guinea Pig (who has a poor little head) was drunk in ten minutes. You are so proud of your humanity. Ha, ha! As if a pair of respectable crows wouldn’t have done it much better?