ng of the departed, but each asking after the other, as though
thereby casting an indirect libation to this event, which they had come
to honour.

And presently James said:

"Well, I think we ought to be starting."

They went downstairs, and, two and two, as they had been told off in
strict precedence, mounted the carriages.

The hearse started at a foot's pace; the carriages moved slowly after.
In the first went old Jolyon with Nicholas; in the second, the twins,
Swithin and James; in the third, Roger and young Roger; Soames, young
Nicholas, George, and Bosinney followed in the fourth. Each of the other
carriages, eight in all, held three or four of the family; behind them
came the doctor's brougham; then, at a decent interval, cabs containing
family clerks and servants; and at the very end, one containing nobody at
all, but bringing the total cortege up to the number of thirteen.

So long as the procession kept to the highway of the Bayswater Road, it
retained the foot's-pace, but, turning into less important
thorough-fares, it soon broke into a trot, and so proceeded, with
intervals of walking in the more fashionable streets, until it arrived.
In the first carriage old Jolyon and Nicholas were talking of their
wills. In the second the twins, after a single attempt, had lapsed into
complete silence; both were rather deaf, and the exertion of making
themselves heard was too great. Only once James broke this silence:

"I shall have to be looking about for some ground somewhere. What
arrangements have you made, Swithin?"

And Swithin, fixing him with a dreadful stare, answered:

"Don't talk to me about such things!"

In the third carriage a disjointed conversation was carried on in the
intervals of looking out to see how far they had got, George remarking,
"Well, it was really time that the poor old lady went." He didn't
believe in people living beyond seventy, Young Nicholas replied mildly
that the rule didn't seem to apply to the Forsytes. George said he
himself intended to commit suicide at sixty. Young Nicholas, smiling and
stroking a long chin, didn't think his father would like that theory; he
had made a lot of money since he was sixty. Well, seventy was the
outside limit; it was then time, George said, for them to go and leave
their money to their children. Soames, hitherto silent, here joined in;
he had not forgotten the remark about the 'undertaking,' and, lifting his
eyelids almost imperceptib