The Puff Interjectional 



The sacristano lighted a line of candles, just within the 

 gilded bars, which dimly lighted up this somewhat tawdry 

 sepulchre. The poor little pocket-edition of Catholic 

 Majesty^ bound in crimson velvet and gold, suppressed so 

 soon after publication, with the hot-pressed leaves of his 

 kingly destiny uncut, lay on an altar-table in the middle of 

 the vault, and afforded a topic of moralising speculation on 

 his probable escape from many troubles. Around him, in 

 their carved and gilded bins, reposed the ashes of his less 

 fortunate ancestry, many of whom had better been buried 

 in their first than in their second childhood. The sacristan 

 pointed out the positions of various kings and queens ; and 

 I asked him, as we were about to depart, which receptacle 

 was reserved for Isabella II. 



" No se sabe todavia." (It is not yet known.) 



"Que importa?" (What does it matter?) said the fat 

 young man in an irreverent tone of levity ; " despues de la 

 muerte, para mi todo es bueno " (after death, one place, as 

 far as I am concerned, is as good as another), 



" Hombre ! " cried the sacristan, as he stooped down to 

 blow out the row of candles within the grating, " you should 

 not (pufF) talk lightly (pufF) in the presence of the sacred 

 (puff) remains of their Catholic (puff) Majesties." 



The assertion of Death's levelling republicanism by the 

 fat young man, and the undignified official remonstrance of 

 the wheezy little sacristan, as he stooped and puffed over 

 his flaring and swealing candles, — contrasting so strangely 

 with all that solemn gloom and visible darkness of funereal 

 pomp, — awakened a sense of the ludicrous, much stronger 

 than description can give an idea of ; and we laughed with 

 such irreverent heartiness, that I do not doubt but the old 

 sexton (who laughed a little too himself) would ease his con- 

 science by cursing us all for a set of blasphemous heretics. 



343 



