cular about names. If it were one of our
'first families,' the old fellow would be so obsequious about having the
name down square--"

Mr. Snivel frets his fingers through his beard, and bows with an easy
grace.

"Our first families!" repeats Madame Montford.

"Yes, indeed! He is extremely correct over their funerals. They are of a
fashionable sort, you see. Well, while I was musing over the decaying
dead, and the distinction between poor dead and rich dead, there came
along one Graves, a sort of wayward, half simpleton, who goes about
among churchyards, makes graves a study, knows where every one who has
died for the last century is tucked away, and is worth six sextons at
pointing out graves. He never knows anything about the living, for the
living, he says, won't let him live; and that being the case, he only
wants to keep up his acquaintance with the dead. He never has a hat to
his head, nor a shoe to his foot; and where, and how he lives, no one
can tell. He has been at the whipping-post a dozen times or more, but
I'm not so sure that the poor wretch ever did anything to merit such
punishment. Just as the crabbed old sexton was going to drive him out of
the gate with a big stick, I says, more in the way of a joke than
anything else: 'Graves, come here!--I want a word or two with you.' He
came up, looking shy and suspicious, and saying he wasn't going to harm
anybody, but there was some fresh graves he was thinking over."

"Some fresh graves!" repeats Madame Montford, nervously.

"Bless you!--a very common thing," rejoins Mr. Snivel, with a bow.
"Well, this lean simpleton said they (the graves) were made while he was
sick. That being the case, he was deprived--and he lamented it
bitterly--of being present at the funerals, and getting the names of the
deceased. He is a great favorite with the grave-digger, lends him a
willing hand on all occasions, and is extremely useful when the yellow
fever rages. But to the sexton he is a perfect pest, for if a grave be
made during his absence he will importune until he get the name of the
departed. 'Graves,' says I, 'where do they bury these unfortunate women
who die off so, here in Charleston?' 'Bless you, my friend,' says
Graves, accompanying his words with an idiotic laugh, 'why, there's
three stacks of them, yonder. They ship them from New York in lots, poor
things; they dies here in droves, poor things; and we buries them yonder
in piles, poor things. They go--yes, sir