"Just as I thought, egad. The pale horse in the Revelation, ma'am, he's running a gallop in my pulse; it has been threatening the last three days, and now I'm in for it, and I should not be surprised, Miss Sally, if it ended in a funeral in our alley." "God forbid, sir." "Amen, with all my heart. Ay, the pale horse; my head's splitting; oblige me with the looking-glass, and a little less light will answer. Thank you--very good. Just draw the curtain open at the foot of the bed; please, hold it nearer--thank you. Yes, a ghost, ma'am--ha, ha--at last, I do suppose. My eyes, too--I've seen pits, with the water drying up, hollow--ay, ay; sunk--and--now--did you see? Well, look at my tongue--here"--and he made the demonstration; "you never saw a worse tongue than _that_, I fancy; that tongue, ma'am, is eloquent, _I_ think." "Please God, sir, you'll soon be better." "Draw the curtain a bit more; the light falls oddly, or--does it?--my face. Did you ever see, ma'am, a face so nearly the colour of a coffin-plate?" "Don't be talking, sir, please, of no such thing," said Sally Rumble, taking heart of grace, for women generally pluck up a spirit when they see a man floored by sickness. "I'll make you some whey or barley-water, or would you like some weak tea better?" "Ay; will you draw the curtain close again, and take away the looking-glass? Thanks. I believe I've drunk all the water in the carafe. Whey--well, I suppose it's the right thing; _caudle_ when we're coming _in_, and _whey_, ma'am, when we're going _out_. Baptism of Infants, Burial of the Dead! My poor mother, how she did put us through the prayer-book, and Bible--Bible. Dear me." "There's a very good man, sir, please--the Rev. Doctor Bartlett, though he's gone rather old. He came in, and read a deal, and prayed, every day with my sister when she was sick, poor thing." "Bartlett? What's his Christian name? You need not speak loud--it plays the devil with my head." "The Reverend Thomas Bartlett, please, sir." "Of Jesus?" "What, sir, please?" "Jesus _College_." "Don't know, I'm sure, sir." "Is he old?" "Yes, sir, past seventy." "Ha--well I don't care a farthing about him," said Mr. Dingwell. "Will you, please, have in the apothecary, sir? I'll fetch him directly, if you wish." "No--_no_ apothecary, _no_ clergyman; I don't believe in the Apostles' Creed, ma'am, and I do believe in the jokes about apothecaries. If I'm to go, I'll go quietly, if you please." Honest Sally Rumble was heavy at heart to see this old man, who certainly did look ghastly enough to suggest ideas of the undertaker and the sexton, in so unsatisfactory a plight as to his immortal part. Was he a Jew?--there wasn't a hair on his chin--or a Roman Catholic?--or a member of any one of those multitudinous forms of faith which she remembered in a stout volume, adorned with woodcuts, and entitled "A Dictionary of all Religions," in a back parlour of her grand-uncle, the tallow-chandler?