The Watchman in his box was dozing; The Sexton drinking at the Cheshire Cheese; No fear of any creature interposing, The human Jackal work’d away at ease: He toss’d the mould to left and right, The shabby coffin came in sight, And soon it open’d to his double-knocks,-- When lo! the stiff’un that he thought to meet, Starts sudden up, like Jacky-in-a-box, Upon his seat! Awaken’d from his trance, For so the laudanum had wrought by chance, Bunce stares up at the moon, next looking level, He spies a shady Figure, tall and bony, Then shudders out these words “Are--you--the--Devil?” “The Devil a bit of him,” says Mike Mahoney, “I’m only com’d here, hoping no affront, To pick up honestly a little blunt--” “Blunt!” echoes Bunce, with a hoarse croak of laughter,-- “Why, man, I turn’d life’s candle in the socket, Without a rap in either pocket, For want of that same blunt you’re looking after!” “That’s true,” says Mike, “and many a pretty man Has cut his stick upon your very plan, Not worth a copper, him and all his trumps, And yet he’s fetch’d a dacent lot of stuff, Provided he was sound and fresh enough, And dead as dumps.” “I take,” quoth Bunce, with a hard wink, “the fact is, You mean a subject for a surgeon’s practice,-- I hope the question is not out of reason, But just suppose a lot of flesh and bone, For instance, like my own, What might it chance to fetch now, at this season?” “Fetch, is it?” answers Mike, “why prices differ,-- But taking this same small bad job of ours, I reckon, by the pow’rs! I’ve lost ten pound by your not being stiffer!” “Ten pounds!” Bunce echoes in a sort of flurry, “Odd zounds! Ten pounds, How sweet it sounds, Ten pounds!” And on his feet upspringing in a hurry-- It seem’d the operation of a minute-- A little scuffle--then a whack-- And then he took the Body Snatcher’s sack And poked him in it! Such is this life! A very pantomime for tricks and strife! See Bunce, so lately in Death’s passive stock, Invested, now as active as a griffin, Walking--no ghost--in velveteens and smock, To sell a stiff’un!