#i mean...unless he works a wholesale shift like RIGHT before he leaves

[erythristicbones]

usually at work all of the coffee bagging is split between two ppl, i do all the retail and the other guy does all the wholesale. but he's going home for a month on july 14th, which means for that month i will be the only one doing all the bagging

so like on one hand i feel "sweet more money/shifts, maybe i can actually afford that new phone soon" but on the other hand........yeah, it does mean that im gonna have a lot more responsibility on my shoulders alone huh

[space-blue]

Artist and Hound

Iain Hund, former supernatural homicide detective, now mere magical vandalism inspector, feels the staleness of his car's air like a strangling hand upon his thoughts. He sends a last baleful glare at the wall he has pointlessly stalked for the past eight hours and starts his car to drive back to the station.

In all his years in the Sup-PD, Hund had never doubted his own righteousness. When the Harris case had come his way, he'd broken all the rules necessary to land the damn man behind bars and still felt like it was right. He had accepted his demotion as a cheap price to pay to save the public from the likes of Jack Harris. So when he put down his things on his new cramped desk at magical vandalism, and even after a year chasing Blues dealers, petty curse carvers, and weres doing their claws on public property, Iain Hund had remained serene. Regret bloomed in him when the Artist's case was made his top priority.

Tom, whom he shares his desk with, is a cold shoulder to cry on.

"No chance with this new stake-out then?" Met only by moody silence, Tom pushes a box of donut accross the desk. "You look like you need some."

"You eat donuts like a road cop."

"Well, those guys know what's up. Didn't you work with them, back in the day?"

"Yes," Iain sighs, dunking his hand in the proffered box, "and this case is the most pointless and disheartening task I've been given in my career, which includes these old patrols with the normal's police, writing tickets and shit."

"Come on, the Artist has been taunting us for years, but she can't be flawless. Guy with an ability like yours, what's that? Magikolour synaesthesia? Why go for stake-outs and CCTV? Why not make some traps? You've got more magical ability than this whole floor put together!"

"Tom, I'd need so many warrants for one trap, it's not ever happening. I think I got given this task as extra punishment. Something senseless to run after until I retire."

"What if they really think you can catch the vandal who's never been caught?"

"Why do they want that anyway? Because some loony normal might scrap some paint off a wall and somehow figue out there's something off with it? What am I to say to her if I catch her? 'You're under arrest for artistry. Your fingers will be broken... No, sorry, I mean, I need your address so we can send you fines!' Don't you think we'd all be better off with more art like hers in NY, and less wendigos or murderous weres I could put behind bars?"

"Hund, I don't wanna disappoint, but the world's been doing just fine without you. Also, moaning to me isn't getting you back into homicide and you know it. Artist is no murderer, maybe you've got to change your tactic, get original."

Iain, knowing good advice when he hears it, wonders about the changes he could make. The police, sup or normal's, has no name or face to put on the Artist. Even her gender is as good as the street word, rumours from the guy who knows a guy who's seen her.

Dusting donut crumbs from his notebooks, Iain peruses through weeks of drawings. When seen by normals or photographed, the Artist's work is static, if beautiful graffiti art. The drawings were to capture the details of what sups–anyone with a shred of magical ability–saw instead: myriads of images, sometimes a whole scene, with characters turning to the watcher, mouth opening in mute calls, sometimes the paint exploding out of the walls, pulling you in clouds of coruscant particles. In his book Iain has little boats on the calm waters of a lake, the face of a submerged god half hidden under lotuses; a pale man weeping liquid gold; a woman playing a sitar, each sound coming alive in the shape of a fantastical animal; a highway bridge pillar turned into an aquarium in which twirled a bigger-than-life mermaid; and many more. His notebook is far thicker than the case file ever was. In the last pages he finds the sketches made of a long mural of dancers. Their appearance changed depending on the angle you looked at it, a masquerade of shape-shifters. In it is a message for the man the Artist knows is on her trail, for hidden behind the legs of a dancer stands a black wolf-dog and though it has no collar, a golden tag gleams beneath its jaws, etched in the faintest strokes with the name Iain.

That's how she must see me: the law's dog on his invisible leash.

"Alright, let's get original."

"Mmh? Where are you going?"

"Hudson Heights. I'm gonna get friendlier with our local alchemists."

He leaves Tom to choke on his donut.

Alchemists have no claws or tooth to rend through you, but they don't need them. The power they wield, and their tendency for single minded obsession, makes them a prickly bunch, and the Sup-PD has a special unit for policing them. Iain's badge feels like a flimsy shield in his hand as he steps down from the sunny, all-American street and into the subterranean entrance to the alchemy quarters. The skills of the Artist and the finesse of her alchemical paints has already sent Iain deep inside those hidden galleries of shops and studios, where his questions revealed envy, admiration, and wholesalers of raw materials who did most business online and all proudly claimed her as a loyal customer, whilst unable or unwilling to prove anything.

The man at the entrance smiles at Hund.

"What do you want this time, cop?"

"Just visiting Toby Smith as a customer today." Iain grimaces. "Please."

The doorman grins sardonically, Smith being a famously irascible alchemist. He reaches for the door handle and applies his magic to it. To Iain it looks like a blue aura. A small displacement magic, that opens doors to other places. He nods his thanks and scuttles past and right into the maddening chaos of Toby Smith's shop.

"You again? What do you want now?" a disembodied voice asks from all corners.

Smith does business like this, never bothering to be present in the same room as his customers, his store guarded by an arsenal of curses that would make any hardened criminal as docile as a puppy.

"Paints."

"You're still after the Artist?"

"Ah, yes sir."

"You planning on defacing her work?"

"No sir. I–well, I like her work too. She caters to her fans though, and I thought, maybe, I can get to discuss with her somehow?"

Drawers open at invisible hands, glass jars and packets start drifting towards Iain.

"You're planning some sort of painting show-down? You've got guts Hund, I like it. Leave two hundred behind, follow the instructions on the packs, and work on your magic before mixing, unless you want blowing your moronic face off."

"Thanks sir."

"You're a better guy than I assumed."

"Sir?"

"Mixing paints to life is a tiny magic, but it's also very rare. The Artist has a unique gift. That someone with such a high grade magic as yours can appreciate her work is good. Maybe with you on her case she won't get wiped after all."

Iain mouth goes very dry.

"Wiped? Why would..."

His mind reels. It makes perfect sense now. Why bother with breaking fingers, indeed! Such a small gift, to breath life into a pot of already alchemical paint. It would take a tiny trap seal with her name on it to erase her magic as surely as if she were born a normal. He can picture his bosses, patting him on the shoulder. Good job Hund.

"Hund?"

"Thank you sir. For your honesty."

Iain goes home on autopilot, lost in his thoughts. He spends several evenings practising, and more building the final spell-works and paints before going out. He's mapped the Artist's work throughout Manhattan, and picked a wall she is likely to walk by. Finally he sits behind the wheel of his car and works a small shifting magic on his face. He has decided to go into the night to do what he's paid to stop. He feels shivers of anticipation and dread, a kinship and a respect stronger than ever before for the Artist who so inconspicuously prowls the nights.

He does her portrait, suggested, unfinished, broad strokes of paint revealing how little he knows of her. Sitting beside her stands a black hound with a golden tag, his muzzle resting in her lap, adoring eyes gazing up into her unpainted face waiting to be filled. Artist and Hound, he titles it.

A promise.

Two days later, Iain finds that the mouth of the Artist has been painted over in a slight smile.

~~ October 2018 – Theme : Small Magics

[autolovecraft]

He changed his business, but something always preyed upon him.

The boxes were fairly even, and could be piled up like blocks; so he began to realize the truth and to shout loudly as if his horse outside could do more than neigh an unsympathetic reply.

For the long-neglected latch was obviously broken, leaving the careless undertaker trapped in the vault, a victim of his own oversight. I believe his eye-for-an-eye fury could beat old Father Death himself. He was just dizzy and careless enough to annoy his sensitive horse, which as he drew it viciously up at the tomb neighed and pawed and tossed its head, much as on that former occasion when the rain had vexed it. Fortunately the village was small and the death rate low, so that it was possible to give all of Birch's inanimate charges a temporary haven in the single antiquated receiving tomb. The borders of the space were entirely of brick, and there seemed little doubt but that he could shortly chisel away enough to allow his body to pass. What else, he added, could ever in any case be proved or believed?

It was generally stated that the affliction and shock were results of an unlucky slip whereby Birch had locked himself for nine hours in the receiving tomb of Peck Valley Cemetery, escaping only by crude and disastrous mechanical means; but while this much was undoubtedly true, there were other and blacker things which the man used to whisper to me in his drunken delirium toward the last. Would the firm Fenner casket have caved in so readily? It may have been mocking. Several of the coffins began to split under the stress of handling, and he planned to save the rejected specimen, and to let no other doctor treat the wounds. I agreed that he was wise in so doing. The narrow transom admitted only the feeblest of rays, and the source of a task whose performance deserved every possible stimulus. He worked largely by feeling now, since newly gathered clouds hid the moon; and though progress was still slow, he felt heartened at the extent of his encroachments on the top and bottom of the aperture. The air had begun to be exceedingly unwholesome; but to this detail he paid no attention as he toiled, half by feeling, at the heavy and corroded metal of the latch.

The vault had been dug from a hillside, so that the coffins beneath him rocked and creaked. Certainly, the events of that evening greatly changed George Birch. Birch to insist at all times that his wounds were caused entirely by loose nails and splintering wood. His head was broken in, and everything was tumbled about. He had not forgotten the criticism aroused when Hannah Bixby's relatives, wishing to transport her body to the cemetery in the city whither they had moved, found the casket of Judge Capwell beneath her headstone. He was curiously unelated over his impending escape, and almost dreaded the exertion, for his form had the indolent stoutness of early middle age. There was evidently, however, no pursuer; for he was alone and alive when Armington, the lodge-keeper, answered his feeble clawing at the door.

I am no practiced teller of tales. He had not forgotten the criticism aroused when Hannah Bixby's relatives, wishing to transport her body to the cemetery in the city whither they had moved, found the casket of Judge Capwell beneath her headstone. In this twilight too, he began to compute how he might most stably use the eight to rear a scalable platform four deep. In time the hole grew so large that he ventured to try his body in it now and then, shifting about so that the narrow ventilation funnel in the top ran through several feet of earth, making this direction utterly useless to consider.

His questioning grew more than medically tense, and his hands shook as he dressed the mangled members; binding them as if he wished to get the wounds out of sight as quickly as possible. The undertaker grew doubly lethargic in the bitter weather, and seemed to outdo even himself in carelessness. The practices I heard attributed to him would be unbelievable today, at least in a city; and even Peck Valley would have shuddered a bit had it known the easy ethics of its mortuary artist in such debatable matters as the ownership of costly laying-out apparel invisible beneath the casket's lid, and the overhead ventilation funnel virtually none at all; so that he was reduced to a profane fumbling as he made his halting way among the long boxes toward the latch.

Birch, and I believe his eye-for-an-eye fury could beat old Father Death himself.

The tower at length finished, and his aching arms rested by a pause during which he sat on the bottom box to gather strength for the final wriggle and leap to the ground outside.

Clutching the edges of the aperture, he sought to drain from the weakened undertaker every least detail of his horrible experience. The body was pretty badly gone, but if ever I saw vindictiveness on any face—or former face. His day's work was sadly interrupted, and unless chance presently brought some rambler hither, he might have to remain all night or longer. After a full two hours Dr. Davis left Birch that night he had taken a lantern and gone to the old receiving tomb.

That was Darius Peck, the nonagenarian, whose grave was not far from the daily paths of men was enough to exasperate him thoroughly. He could, he was sure, get out by midnight—though it is characteristic of him that this thought was untinged with eerie implications.

He had, indeed, made that coffin for Matthew Fenner; but had cast it aside at last as too awkward and flimsy, in a fit of curious sentimentality aroused by recalling how kindly and generous the little old man had been to him during his bankruptcy five years before. Better still, though, he would utilize only two boxes of the base to support the superstructure, leaving one free to be piled on top in case the actual feat of escape required an even greater altitude. The skull turned my stomach, but the other was worse—those ankles cut neatly off to fit Matt Fenner's cast-aside coffin! Birch that night he had taken a lantern and gone to the old receiving tomb. As his hammer blows began to fall, the horse outside whinnied in a tone which may have been encouraging and to others may have been encouraging and to others may have been fear mixed with a queer belated sort of remorse for bygone crudities. He was the devil incarnate, Birch, just as I thought! That he was not perfectly sober, he subsequently admitted; though he had not then taken to the wholesale drinking by which he later tried to forget certain things. He was a bachelor, wholly without relatives. His head was broken in, and everything was tumbled about. I'll never get the picture out of my head as long as I live.

He had not forgotten the criticism aroused when Hannah Bixby's relatives, wishing to transport her body to the cemetery in the city whither they had moved, found the casket of Judge Capwell beneath her headstone. The narrow transom admitted only the feeblest of rays, and the coffin niches on the sides and rear—which Birch seldom took the trouble to use—afforded no ascent to the space above the door.

Another might not have relished the damp, odorous chamber with the eight carelessly placed coffins; but Birch in those days was insensitive, and was concerned only in getting the right coffin for the platform; for no sooner was his full bulk again upon it than the rotting lid gave way, jouncing him two feet down on a surface which even he did not heed the day at all; though ever afterward he refused to do anything of importance on that fateful sixth day of the week. I agreed that he was reduced to a profane fumbling as he made his halting way among the long boxes toward the latch. Would the firm Fenner casket have caved in so readily? Horrible pains, as of savage wounds, shot through his calves; and in his mind was a vortex of fright mixed with an unquenchable materialism that suggested splinters, loose nails, or some other attribute of a breaking wooden box. Davis died. On the afternoon of Friday, April 15th, then, Birch set out for the tomb with horse and wagon to transfer the body of Matthew Fenner. The undertaker grew doubly lethargic in the bitter weather, and seemed to outdo even himself in carelessness.

He had, it seems, planned in vain when choosing the stoutest coffin for the platform; for no sooner was his full bulk again upon it than the rotting lid gave way, jouncing him two feet down on a surface which even he did not care to imagine. In time the hole grew so large that he ventured to try his body in it now and then, shifting about so that the narrow ventilation funnel in the top ran through several feet of earth, making this direction utterly useless to consider.

Then he fled back to the lodge and broke all the rules of his calling by rousing and shaking his patient, and hurling at him a succession of shuddering whispers that seared into the bewildered ears like the hissing of vitriol. The pile of tools soon reached, and a little later gave a gasp that was more terrible than a cry. It was generally stated that the affliction and shock were results of an unlucky slip whereby Birch had locked himself for nine hours in the receiving tomb of Peck Valley Cemetery, escaping only by crude and disastrous mechanical means; but while this much was undoubtedly true, there were other and blacker things which the man used to whisper to me in his drunken delirium toward the last.

[mikemortgage]

What’s next for SNC-Lavalin: Five potential scenarios, from decamping to the U.K. to a wholesale break-up

While the political drama that unfolded in Ottawa this past week has many speculating about the future of Justin Trudeau’s Liberal government, the fate of the company at the centre of the storm is no less certain.

Former justice minister Jody Wilson-Raybould’s refusal to interfere in the prosecution of Quebec-based engineering and construction giant SNC-Lavalin, despite apparent pressure from the Prime Minister’s office and other government officials, means the company is likely headed for a court showdown on criminal fraud and corruption charges over alleged bribery in Libya.

If convicted, the company could face a 10-year ban on bidding for Canadian government contracts. It could also find itself restricted from some international work, with bodies such as the World Bank cracking down on corruption.

A criminal proceeding couldn’t come at a worse time for SNC, which is already struggling with the underperformance of its mining and oil and gas segments, as well as the fallout from a diplomatic spat between Canada and Saudi Arabia, where SNC has significant operations. Those issues forced SNC to issue two profit warnings in recent weeks, and to slash its dividend.

Why Jody Wilson-Raybould likely never pushed prosecutors to settle the case against SNC-Lavalin

Investors sensing a Warren Buffett moment in SNC Lavalin should look before they leap

Here's how a new escape route could open up for SNC-Lavalin

They have also prompted talk of whether the company might need to take radical steps to reshape — or even break up — its operations in order to survive. With that in mind, the Financial Post examined five potential scenarios, from decamping to another jurisdiction to hiving off portions of the company, and assessed what they would mean for SNC.

1. Leave Canada

According to her testimony, Jody Wilson-Raybould was told by government officials, including Prime Minister Justin Trudeau, that SNC might pull up stakes and move out of Quebec if it was not offered a so-called deferred prosecution agreement, a type of arrangement new to Canada that allows companies to settle criminal cases without the stain of a conviction. She said Michael Wernick, the top civil servant in Ottawa, told her a move to the U.K. was likely. Though it is not known if SNC itself made such a threat, shifting headquarters to another jurisdiction — with the United Kingdom being the most likely destination — would not be out of the realm of possibility for the company. SNC already has significant operations in the U.K., where in 2017 it bought WS Atkins plc, a design, engineering and project management consultancy, for $3.6 billion. While a move might appear to offer SNC a fresh start and give it the opportunity to negotiate future concessions from a different, potentially more accommodating government, most company watchers see the option as more of a bargaining chip than a real plan. “Moving could reduce the uncertainty, but I just don’t see how this happens,” said Frederic Bastien, an analyst at Raymond James who covers the company. On top of the fact that such a move would not stop a prosecution, or relieve SNC of other potential legal liabilities, it would also mean turning its back on Canada, where it has 9,000 employees and does nearly 30 per cent of its business. There is also the complicating matter of a loan agreement the company signed with the Caisse de dépôt et placement du Québec to raise funds for the Atkins acquisition, in which in agreed to keep its headquarters in Quebec until 2024.

2. Find a hometown saviour

Nowhere is the angst over the future of SNC-Lavalin more intense than in its home province of Quebec. In recent days, Quebec Premier Francois Legault has weighed in, warning that the company could be susceptible to a takeover or significant job attrition given its weakened state. Those concerns raise the possibility that one or more of the major players in Quebec could step up and buy the company outright. The most obvious candidate would be the Caisse de dépôt et placement du Québec, which manages $309.5 billion on behalf of Quebec pension funds and insurance plans — and which is already SNC’s largest shareholder. Michael Sabia, chief executive of the Caisse, has vowed to “be a rock” for the company and observers take him at his word: Over the past year, the Caisse has boosted its stake from 14 per cent to 20 per cent. History also dictates that it is prepared to step in to shore up Quebec firms. A recent example would be the pension giant’s financial support of Bombardier Inc., in which it invested $1.5 billion in 2015 amid speculation the transportation giant might fall into foreign hands. But the Caisse isn’t the only possibility. “You’re more likely to see the Fonds de solidarité FTQ start building a position given (Quebec Premier) Francois Legault’s show of support for the name,” says Bastien, the Raymond James analyst. Created by Quebec’s largest central labour body, the Fonds has a mandate to make investments to create and protect jobs and promote economic growth in Quebec. A Quebec buyout wouldn’t absolve SNC of its legal problems, but deep-pocketed backers would at least help it to weather the storm, and keep it firmly planted in the province.

SNC-Lavalin’s headquarters in Montreal.

3. Good SNC, Bad SNC

While SNC might be tempted to try to find a buyer for the entire company, finding one at the right price could be a challenge, according to three lawyers with decades of experience in mergers and acquisitions. That’s because legal liabilities would be transferred with SNC in any sale, meaning it could be forced to unload at a discounted or even “fire sale” price — unless a creative solution can be found. The veteran dealmakers suggest one option might be to bifurcate the company in an attempt to isolate the business that triggered the legal liability stemming from the bribery allegations. “There are precedents,” said one lawyer based in Toronto, adding that the tactic has been used more often in the United States, usually to manage cases of insolvency or bankruptcy. “It’s sort of the good company/bad company, good assets/bad assets (split), which happened a lot in the financial crisis in the financial sector in the U.S.,” the lawyer said. “But it’s happened in other insolvency contexts where you try to ring-fence the bad assets and sell the good assets.” Another dealmaker pointed to the recent announcement that Gap would spin off its better-performing Old Navy division into a separate, publicly traded company to separate the brand with strong sales from the weaker one. In the case of SNC, he suggested, the “bad business” could be left in one jurisdiction, with the “good business” moved to another, friendlier one. But isolating the troubled business of SNC wouldn’t be as straightforward as the division of Gap and Old Navy, and would require some creativity to manage the rights and desires of all stakeholders, according to multiple M&A specialists who spoke on condition of anonymity because their firms may do, or have done, business with SNC. Even if it were to successfully conceive such as split, the good business might also have to change hands, one suggested. “You have to assume that SNC is thinking about what-if scenarios (and) one of the what-if scenarios is at some point they may be worth more in the hands of somebody else and if somebody else can maybe be able to cleanse this problem that has become so toxic for SNC,” said the dealmaker.

4. Asset sales

In the event of a downturn in business due to a conviction, SNC does have at least one significant asset it could sell to combat a cash crunch. SNC’s stake in the 407 toll road that skirts Toronto to the north has been rumoured to be on the block before, as recently as August when the company itself suggested it might sell part of its holding in a bid to unlock shareholder value. While there would be no shortage of bidders, some question whether there is enough of an incentive to sell without a larger, more encompassing solution to the company’s problems. SNC’s 16 per cent stake in the 407 could be worth billions, and is often used by analysts to set a floor on the company’s stock price. Claude Lamoureux, former head of the Ontario Teachers’ Pension Plan Board, notes that the 407 provides a steady income stream that offsets lumpier revenue from other operations. Spinning it off would be easy, Lamoureux said, “but at the same time, it weakens SNC.” Bastien, the Raymond James analyst, said a sale of the 407 on its own would not be enough to change his view on SNC stock. “I’m not a fan of companies selling their best business to shore up struggling ones,” he said. In a recent note to clients, he said SNC’s dividend cut “suggests to us a partial sale of Highway 407 may not be imminent after all.”

5. Maintain the status quo

Even if SNC faces a 10-year ban from bidding on federal contracts, there is no indication that it would be unable to complete projects in which it is already involved. Those include the Champlain Bridge in Montreal, which is under way, and the Réseau Express Métropolitain (REM) transit Line in Greater Montreal. That however, may be small consolation, as company watchers note that the legal cloud hanging over SNC will undoubtedly make it difficult to secure new business, which in turn could lead employees to look for opportunities elsewhere. SNC will also have to deal with the other business issues that have plagued it, including a dispute with a client related to a mining project in Latin America, growing tensions between Canada and Saudi Arabia over human rights and other potential legal issues. One possible solution, as reported by the Financial Post this past week, could come from a change in the rules that ban companies convicted of bribery from participating in government contracts. Officials are understood to be looking at the possibility, but the political climate might make such a change untenable for now. It could, however, come into play at some future point in time, potentially throwing SNC a lifeline. Despite the political hot potato the company and its troubles have become, legal sources have also quietly suggested that Wilson-Raybould’s replacement as attorney general could take another look at whether the company should be offered an opportunity to negotiate a deferred prosecution agreement.

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[autolovecraft]

Sawyer died of a malignant fever.

In this funereal twilight he rattled the rusty handles, pushed at the iron panels, and wondered why the massive portal had grown so suddenly recalcitrant. Steeled by old ordeals in dissecting rooms, the doctor entered and looked about, stifling the nausea of mind and body that everything in sight and smell induced. Birch. An eye for an eye! There was nothing like a ladder in the tomb, and the latch of the great door yielded readily to a touch from the outside. Over the door, however, no pursuer; for he was alone and alive when Armington, the lodge-keeper, answered his feeble clawing at the door. His drinking, of course, only aggravated what it was meant to alleviate. When he perceived that the latch was hopelessly unyielding, at least to such meager tools and under such tenebrous conditions as these, Birch glanced about for other possible points of escape. He confided in me because I was his doctor, and because he probably felt the need of confiding in someone else after Davis died. In this funereal twilight he rattled the rusty handles, pushed at the iron panels, and wondered why the massive portal had grown so suddenly recalcitrant. You kicked hard, for Asaph's coffin was on the floor. There was evidently, however, the high, slit-like transom in the brick facade gave promise of possible enlargement to a diligent worker; hence upon this his eyes long rested as he racked his brains for means to reach it. Just where to begin Birch's story I can hardly decide, since I am no practiced teller of tales. His day's work was sadly interrupted, and unless chance presently brought some rambler hither, he might have to remain all night or longer. You kicked hard, for Asaph's coffin was on the floor. Instinct guided him in his wriggle through the transom, and in the crawl which followed his jarring thud on the damp ground. Over the door, however, the high, slit-like transom in the brick facade gave promise of possible enlargement to a diligent worker; hence upon this his eyes long rested as he racked his brains for means to reach it. Another might not have relished the damp, odorous chamber with the eight carelessly placed coffins; but Birch in those days was insensitive, and was concerned only in getting the right coffin for the platform; for no sooner was his full bulk again upon it than the rotting lid gave way, jouncing him two feet down on a surface which even he did not heed the day at all; though ever afterward he refused to do anything of importance on that fateful sixth day of the week.

Being without superstition, he did not get Asaph Sawyer's coffin by mistake, although it was very similar. God, what a rage! You know what a fiend he was for revenge—how he ruined old Raymond thirty years after their boundary suit, and how he stepped on the puppy that snapped at him a succession of shuddering whispers that seared into the bewildered ears like the hissing of vitriol. Armington, the lodge-keeper, answered his feeble clawing at the door. The light was dim, but Birch's sight was good, and he planned to save the stoutly built casket of little Matthew Fenner for the top, in order that his feet might have as certain a surface as possible. Fortunately the village was small and the death rate low, so that the coffins beneath him rocked and creaked. You kicked hard, for Asaph's coffin was on the floor. It was just as he had recognized old Matt's coffin that the door slammed to in the wind, leaving him in a dusk even deeper than before. He would have given much for a lantern or bit of candle; but lacking these, bungled semi-sightlessly as best he might.

Fortunately the village was small and the death rate low, so that the coffins beneath him rocked and creaked. Birch decided that he would begin the next day with little old Matthew Fenner, whose grave was not far from the tomb.

As he planned, he could not shake clear of the unknown grasp which held his feet in relentless captivity.

Only the coffins themselves remained as potential stepping-stones, and as he considered these he speculated on the best mode of transporting them. In this twilight too, he began to compute how he might most stably use the eight to rear a scalable platform four deep. Undisturbed by oppressive reflections on the time, the place, and the company beneath his feet, he philosophically chipped away the stony brickwork; cursing when a fragment hit him in the face, and laughing when one struck the increasingly excited horse that pawed near the cypress tree.

Three coffin-heights, he reckoned, would permit him to reach the transom; but he could do better with four.

Better still, though, he would utilize only two boxes of the base to support the superstructure, leaving one free to be piled on top in case the actual feat of escape required an even greater altitude.

It is doubtful whether he was touched at all by the horror and exquisite weirdness of his position, but the other was worse—those ankles cut neatly off to fit Matt Fenner's cast-aside coffin, but you always did go too damned far! The undertaker grew doubly lethargic in the bitter weather, and seemed to outdo even himself in carelessness. His drinking, of course, only aggravated what it was meant to alleviate. It must have been midnight at least when Birch decided he could get through the transom. Davis. In time the hole grew so large that he ventured to try his body in it now and then, shifting about so that the narrow ventilation funnel in the top ran through several feet of earth, making this direction utterly useless to consider.

The tower at length finished, and his aching arms rested by a pause during which he sat on the bottom step of his grim device, Birch cautiously ascended with his tools and stood abreast of the narrow transom. Birch in those days was insensitive, and professionally undesirable; yet I still think he was not perfectly sober, he subsequently admitted; though he had not then taken to the wholesale drinking by which he later tried to forget certain things. The hungry horse was neighing repeatedly and almost uncannily, and he planned to save the stoutly built casket of little Matthew Fenner for the top, in order that his feet might have as certain a surface as possible. He was a bachelor, wholly without relatives. The pile of tools soon reached, and a little later gave a gasp that was more terrible than a cry. Most distinctly Birch was lax, insensitive, and professionally undesirable; yet I still think he was not perfectly sober, he subsequently admitted; though he had not then taken to the wholesale drinking by which he later tried to forget certain things.

As he planned, he could not but wish that the units of his contemplated staircase had been more securely made. The thing must have happened at about three-thirty in the afternoon.

He had not forgotten the criticism aroused when Hannah Bixby's relatives, wishing to transport her body to the cemetery in the city whither they had moved, found the casket of Judge Capwell beneath her headstone.

Only the coffins themselves remained as potential stepping-stones, and as he considered these he speculated on the best mode of transporting them. Maddened by the sound, or by the stench which billowed forth even to the open air, the waiting horse gave a scream that was too frantic for a neigh, and plunged madly off through the night, the wagon rattling crazily behind it. Most distinctly Birch was lax, insensitive, and professionally undesirable; yet I still think he was not an evil man.

I'd hate to have it aimed at me! He would have given much for a lantern or bit of candle; but lacking these, bungled semi-sightlessly as best he might.

Clutching the edges of the aperture, he sought to drain from the weakened undertaker every least detail of his horrible experience.

[autolovecraft]

I'd hate to have it aimed at me!

He changed his business in 1881, yet never discussed the case when he could avoid it. Clutching the edges of the aperture, he sought to drain from the weakened undertaker every least detail of his horrible experience.

There was evidently, however, the high, slit-like transom in the brick facade gave promise of possible enlargement to a diligent worker; hence upon this his eyes long rested as he racked his brains for means to reach it. Davis, who died years ago. His day's work was sadly interrupted, and unless chance presently brought some rambler hither, he might have to remain all night or longer. The afflicted man was fully conscious, but would say nothing of any consequence; merely muttering such things as Oh, my ankles! Birch, before 1881, had been the village undertaker of Peck Valley; and was a very calloused and primitive specimen even as such specimens go.

The pile of tools soon reached, and a hammer and chisel selected, Birch returned over the coffins to the door. Several of the coffins began to split under the stress of handling, and he planned to save the rejected specimen, and to use it when Asaph Sawyer died of a malignant fever.

Certainly, the events of that evening greatly changed George Birch. His frightened horse had gone home, but his frightened wits never quite did that. After a full two hours Dr. Davis left Birch that night he had taken a lantern and gone to the old receiving tomb. At any rate he kicked and squirmed frantically and automatically whilst his consciousness was almost eclipsed in a half-swoon.

He had even wondered, at Sawyer's funeral, how the vindictive farmer had managed to lie straight in a box so closely akin to that of the diminutive Fenner.

Well enough to skimp on the thing some way, but you got what you deserved. Another might not have relished the damp, odorous chamber with the eight carelessly placed coffins; but Birch in those days was insensitive, and was concerned only in getting the right coffin for the platform; for no sooner was his full bulk again upon it than the rotting lid gave way, jouncing him two feet down on a surface which even he did not care to imagine. He worked largely by feeling now, since newly gathered clouds hid the moon; and though progress was still slow, he felt heartened at the extent of his encroachments on the top and bottom of the aperture. He could not walk, it appeared, and the latch of the great door yielded readily to a touch from the outside. It was Asaph's coffin, Birch, but you got what you deserved. Then he fled back to the lodge and broke all the rules of his calling by rousing and shaking his patient, and hurling at him a year ago last August … He was the devil incarnate, Birch, and I believe his eye-for-an-eye fury could beat old Father Death himself.

He could not walk, it appeared, and the company beneath his feet, he philosophically chipped away the stony brickwork; cursing when a fragment hit him in the face, and laughing when one struck the increasingly excited horse that pawed near the cypress tree. As his hammer blows began to fall, the horse outside whinnied in a tone which may have been fear mixed with a queer belated sort of remorse for bygone crudities. The hungry horse was neighing repeatedly and almost uncannily, and he did not care to imagine. In the semi-gloom he trusted mostly to touch to select the right one, and indeed came upon it almost by accident, since it tumbled into his hands as if through some odd volition after he had unwittingly placed it beside another on the third layer. It must have been midnight at least when Birch decided he could get through the transom, and in the crawl which followed his jarring thud on the damp ground. Why did you do it, Birch? As he planned, he could not but wish that the units of his contemplated staircase had been more securely made. Tired and perspiring despite many rests, he descended to the floor and sat a while on the bottom step of his grim device, Birch cautiously ascended with his tools and stood abreast of the narrow transom. Davis.

The narrow transom admitted only the feeblest of rays, and the source of a task whose performance deserved every possible stimulus. Steeled by old ordeals in dissecting rooms, the doctor entered and looked about, stifling the nausea of mind and body that everything in sight and smell induced.

As he remounted the splitting coffins he felt his weight very poignantly; especially when, upon reaching the topmost one, he heard that aggravated crackle which bespeaks the wholesale rending of wood.

In another moment he knew fear for the first time that night; for struggle as he would, he could not but wish that the units of his contemplated staircase had been more securely made. In time the hole grew so large that he ventured to try his body in it now and then, shifting about so that the narrow ventilation funnel in the top ran through several feet of earth, making this direction utterly useless to consider. This arrangement could be ascended with a minimum of awkwardness, and would furnish the desired height. He was oddly anxious to know if Birch were sure—absolutely sure—of the identity of that top coffin of the pile; how he had distinguished it from the inferior duplicate coffin of vicious Asaph Sawyer.

At last the spring thaw came, and graves were laboriously prepared for the nine silent harvests of the grim reaper which waited in the tomb, and the latch of the great door yielded readily to a touch from the outside. Over the door, however, no pursuer; for he was alone and alive when Armington, the lodge-keeper, answered his feeble clawing at the door. Armington helped Birch to the outside of a spare bed and sent his little son Edwin for Dr. Davis. Birch? I think the greatest lameness was in his soul. I can hardly decide, since I am no practiced teller of tales. After a full two hours Dr. Davis left Birch that night he had taken a lantern and gone to the old receiving tomb.

I've seen sights before, but there was one thing too much here. He was just dizzy and careless enough to annoy his sensitive horse, which as he drew it viciously up at the tomb neighed and pawed and tossed its head, much as on that former occasion when the rain had vexed it. He had not forgotten the criticism aroused when Hannah Bixby's relatives, wishing to transport her body to the cemetery in the city whither they had moved, found the casket of Judge Capwell beneath her headstone.

On the afternoon of Friday, April 15th, then, Birch set out for the tomb with horse and wagon to transfer the body of Matthew Fenner. The day was clear, but a high wind had sprung up; and Birch was glad to get to shelter as he unlocked the iron door and entered the side-hill vault. He changed his business in 1881, yet never discussed the case when he could avoid it. His thinking processes, once so phlegmatic and logical, had become ineffaceably scarred; and it was pitiful to note his response to certain chance allusions such as Friday, Tomb, Coffin, and words of less obvious concatenation.

Certainly, the events of that evening greatly changed George Birch. Birch decided that he would begin the next day with little old Matthew Fenner, whose grave was not far from the daily paths of men was enough to exasperate him thoroughly.

The practices I heard attributed to him would be unbelievable today, at least in a city; and even Peck Valley would have shuddered a bit had it known the easy ethics of its mortuary artist in such debatable matters as the ownership of costly laying-out apparel invisible beneath the casket's lid, and the coffin niches on the sides and rear—which Birch seldom took the trouble to use—afforded no ascent to the space above the door.

It was generally stated that the affliction and shock were results of an unlucky slip whereby Birch had locked himself for nine hours in the receiving tomb of Peck Valley; and was a very calloused and primitive specimen even as such specimens go. Never did he knock together flimsier and ungainlier caskets, or disregard more flagrantly the needs of the rusty lock on the tomb door which he slammed open and shut with such nonchalant abandon.

Instinct guided him in his wriggle through the transom, and in the crawl which followed his jarring thud on the damp ground. It was just as he had recognized old Matt's coffin that the door slammed to in the wind, leaving him in a dusk even deeper than before. He was a scoundrel, and I believe his eye-for-an-eye fury could beat old Father Death himself.

He had not forgotten the criticism aroused when Hannah Bixby's relatives, wishing to transport her body to the cemetery in the city whither they had moved, found the casket of Judge Capwell beneath her headstone.

[autolovecraft]

Being without superstition, he did not care to imagine.

His drinking, of course, only aggravated what it was meant to alleviate.

The wounds—for both ankles were frightfully lacerated about the Achilles' tendons—seemed to puzzle the old physician greatly, and finally almost to frighten him.

As he remounted the splitting coffins he felt his weight very poignantly; especially when, upon reaching the topmost one, he heard that aggravated crackle which bespeaks the wholesale rending of wood. He had, it seems, planned in vain when choosing the stoutest coffin for the right grave. I'll never get the picture out of my head as long as I live. I've seen sights before, but there was one thing too much here. The narrow transom admitted only the feeblest of rays, and the overhead ventilation funnel virtually none at all; so that he was reduced to a profane fumbling as he made his halting way among the long boxes toward the latch. It may have been mocking. Another might not have relished the damp, odorous chamber with the eight carelessly placed coffins; but Birch in those days was insensitive, and professionally undesirable; yet I still think he was not perfectly sober, he subsequently admitted; though he had not then taken to the wholesale drinking by which he later tried to forget certain things.

It was just as he had recognized old Matt's coffin that the door slammed to in the wind, leaving him in a dusk even deeper than before.

The thing must have happened at about three-thirty in the afternoon. The practices I heard attributed to him would be unbelievable today, at least to such meager tools and under such tenebrous conditions as these, Birch glanced about for other possible points of escape. But it would be well to say as little as could be said, and to let no other doctor treat the wounds. It may have been just fear, and it may have been mocking. Over the door, however, the high, slit-like transom in the brick facade gave promise of possible enlargement to a diligent worker; hence upon this his eyes long rested as he racked his brains for means to reach it. Certainly, the events of that evening greatly changed George Birch. As his hammer blows began to fall, the horse outside whinnied in a tone which may have been mocking. That he was not perfectly sober, he subsequently admitted; though he had not then taken to the wholesale drinking by which he later tried to forget certain things. He had not forgotten the criticism aroused when Hannah Bixby's relatives, wishing to transport her body to the cemetery in the city whither they had moved, found the casket of Judge Capwell beneath her headstone.

He had, it seems, planned in vain when choosing the stoutest coffin for the right grave. It must have been midnight at least when Birch decided he could get through the transom. His head was broken in, and everything was tumbled about. The undertaker grew doubly lethargic in the bitter weather, and seemed to outdo even himself in carelessness. It was generally stated that the affliction and shock were results of an unlucky slip whereby Birch had locked himself for nine hours in the receiving tomb of Peck Valley Cemetery, escaping only by crude and disastrous mechanical means; but while this much was undoubtedly true, there were other and blacker things which the man used to whisper to me in his drunken delirium toward the last. You know what a fiend he was for revenge—how he ruined old Raymond thirty years after their boundary suit, and how he stepped on the puppy that snapped at him a succession of shuddering whispers that seared into the bewildered ears like the hissing of vitriol. When Dr. Davis left, urging Birch to insist at all times that his wounds were caused entirely by loose nails and splintering wood. In the semi-gloom he trusted mostly to touch to select the right one, and indeed came upon it almost by accident, since it tumbled into his hands as if through some odd volition after he had unwittingly placed it beside another on the third layer. Why did you do it, Birch? Perhaps he screamed. Over the door, however, the high, slit-like transom in the brick facade gave promise of possible enlargement to a diligent worker; hence upon this his eyes long rested as he racked his brains for means to reach it. As his hammer blows began to fall, the horse outside whinnied in a tone which may have been mocking.

He was the devil incarnate, Birch, and I don't blame you for giving him a cast-aside coffin! It was Asaph's coffin, Birch, and I don't blame you for giving him a cast-aside coffin! The vault had been dug from a hillside, so that it was possible to give all of Birch's inanimate charges a temporary haven in the single antiquated receiving tomb.

Horrible pains, as of savage wounds, shot through his calves; and in his mind was a vortex of fright mixed with an unquenchable materialism that suggested splinters, loose nails, or some other attribute of a breaking wooden box. I've seen sights before, but there was one thing too much here. Why did you do it, Birch? Certainly, the events of that evening greatly changed George Birch. Horrible pains, as of savage wounds, shot through his calves; and in his mind was a vortex of fright mixed with an unquenchable materialism that suggested splinters, loose nails, or some other attribute of a breaking wooden box.

What else, he added, could ever in any case be proved or believed? He was just dizzy and careless enough to annoy his sensitive horse, which as he drew it viciously up at the tomb neighed and pawed and tossed its head, much as on that former occasion when the rain had vexed it. Davis left Birch that night he had taken a lantern and gone to the old receiving tomb. In time the hole grew so large that he ventured to try his body in it now and then, shifting about so that the coffins beneath him rocked and creaked. His day's work was sadly interrupted, and unless chance presently brought some rambler hither, he might have to remain all night or longer. There was evidently, however, the high, slit-like transom in the brick facade gave promise of possible enlargement to a diligent worker; hence upon this his eyes long rested as he racked his brains for means to reach it.

And so the prisoner toiled in the twilight, heaving the unresponsive remnants of mortality with little ceremony as his miniature Tower of Babel rose course by course.

Instinct guided him in his wriggle through the transom, and in the crawl which followed his jarring thud on the damp ground. This arrangement could be ascended with a minimum of awkwardness, and would furnish the desired height. It is doubtful whether he was touched at all by the horror and exquisite weirdness of his position, but the bald fact of imprisonment so far from the tomb. God, what a rage! The hungry horse was neighing repeatedly and almost uncannily, and he did not get Asaph Sawyer's coffin by mistake, although it was very similar. Then the doctor came with his medicine-case and asked crisp questions, and removed the patient's outer clothing, shoes, and socks. In this twilight too, he began to compute how he might most stably use the eight to rear a scalable platform four deep. His day's work was sadly interrupted, and unless chance presently brought some rambler hither, he might have to remain all night or longer.

[autolovecraft]

An eye for an eye!

He would not, he found, have to pile another on his platform to make the proper height; for the unexpected tenacity of the easy-looking brickwork was surely a sardonic commentary on the vanity of mortal hopes, and the latch of the great door yielded readily to a touch from the outside.

Maddened by the sound, or by the stench which billowed forth even to the open air, the waiting horse gave a scream that was too frantic for a neigh, and plunged madly off through the night, the wagon rattling crazily behind it. He confided in me because I was his doctor, and because he probably felt the need of confiding in someone else after Davis died. There was nothing like a ladder in the tomb.

He could, he was sure, get out by midnight—though it is characteristic of him that this thought was untinged with eerie implications. Several of the coffins began to split under the stress of handling, and he planned to save the stoutly built casket of little Matthew Fenner for the top, in order that his feet might have as certain a surface as possible. It must have been midnight at least when Birch decided he could get through the transom. Fortunately the village was small and the death rate low, so that the narrow ventilation funnel in the top ran through several feet of earth, making this direction utterly useless to consider.

An eye for an eye! Never did he knock together flimsier and ungainlier caskets, or disregard more flagrantly the needs of the rusty lock on the tomb door which he slammed open and shut with such nonchalant abandon. Then he fled back to the lodge and broke all the rules of his calling by rousing and shaking his patient, and hurling at him a year ago last August … He was the devil incarnate, Birch, just as I thought! Then he fled back to the lodge and broke all the rules of his calling by rousing and shaking his patient, and hurling at him a succession of shuddering whispers that seared into the bewildered ears like the hissing of vitriol. On the afternoon of Friday, April 15th, then, Birch set out for the tomb with horse and wagon to transfer the body of Matthew Fenner. You kicked hard, for Asaph's coffin was on the floor.

Birch had locked himself for nine hours in the receiving tomb of Peck Valley Cemetery, escaping only by crude and disastrous mechanical means; but while this much was undoubtedly true, there were other and blacker things which the man used to whisper to me in his drunken delirium toward the last. The light was dim, but Birch's sight was good, and he vaguely wished it would stop. You kicked hard, for Asaph's coffin was on the floor. He cried aloud once, and a little later gave a gasp that was more terrible than a cry. His day's work was sadly interrupted, and unless chance presently brought some rambler hither, he might have to remain all night or longer. Steeled by old ordeals in dissecting rooms, the doctor entered and looked about, stifling the nausea of mind and body that everything in sight and smell induced. As his hammer blows began to fall, the horse outside whinnied in a tone which may have been encouraging and to others may have been mocking. As his hammer blows began to fall, the horse outside whinnied in a tone which may have been fear mixed with a queer belated sort of remorse for bygone crudities. He was the devil incarnate, Birch, and I don't blame you for giving him a cast-aside coffin! But it would be well to say as little as could be said, and to use it when Asaph Sawyer died of a malignant fever. As he remounted the splitting coffins he felt his weight very poignantly; especially when, upon reaching the topmost one, he heard that aggravated crackle which bespeaks the wholesale rending of wood. He was oddly anxious to know if Birch were sure—absolutely sure—of the identity of that top coffin of the pile; how he had distinguished it from the inferior duplicate coffin of vicious Asaph Sawyer. Clutching the edges of the aperture, he sought to pull himself up, when he noticed a queer retardation in the form of an apparent drag on both his ankles.

The light was dim, but Birch's sight was good, and he vaguely wished it would stop. He had not forgotten the criticism aroused when Hannah Bixby's relatives, wishing to transport her body to the cemetery in the city whither they had moved, found the casket of Judge Capwell beneath her headstone. The hungry horse was neighing repeatedly and almost uncannily, and he did not care to imagine. In time the hole grew so large that he ventured to try his body in it now and then, shifting about so that the narrow ventilation funnel in the top ran through several feet of earth, making this direction utterly useless to consider. Never did he knock together flimsier and ungainlier caskets, or disregard more flagrantly the needs of the rusty lock on the tomb door which he slammed open and shut with such nonchalant abandon.

His frightened horse had gone home, but his frightened wits never quite did that.

He changed his business in 1881, yet never discussed the case when he could avoid it. I'll never get the picture out of my head as long as I live. Birch set out for the tomb with horse and wagon to transfer the body of Matthew Fenner. He had, it seems, planned in vain when choosing the stoutest coffin for the right grave.

After a full two hours Dr. Davis left, urging Birch to insist at all times that his wounds were caused entirely by loose nails and splintering wood. It was just as he had recognized old Matt's coffin that the door slammed to in the wind, leaving him in a dusk even deeper than before. Clutching the edges of the aperture. Another might not have relished the damp, odorous chamber with the eight carelessly placed coffins; but Birch in those days was insensitive, and was concerned only in getting the right coffin for the platform; for no sooner was his full bulk again upon it than the rotting lid gave way, jouncing him two feet down on a surface which even he did not care to imagine.

[autolovecraft]

That he was not an evil man.

But it would be well to say as little as could be said, and to use it when Asaph Sawyer died of a malignant fever. In time the hole grew so large that he ventured to try his body in it now and then, shifting about so that the narrow ventilation funnel in the top ran through several feet of earth, making this direction utterly useless to consider. Birch glanced about for other possible points of escape. Finally he decided to lay a base of three parallel with the wall, to place upon this two layers of two each, and upon these a single box to serve as the platform. The afflicted man was fully conscious, but would say nothing of any consequence; merely muttering such things as Oh, my ankles! The vault had been dug from a hillside, so that it was possible to give all of Birch's inanimate charges a temporary haven in the single antiquated receiving tomb. The body was pretty badly gone, but if ever I saw vindictiveness on any face—or former face. This arrangement could be ascended with a minimum of awkwardness, and would furnish the desired height. I'd hate to have it aimed at me! Finally he decided to lay a base of three parallel with the wall, to place upon this two layers of two each, and upon these a single box to serve as the platform. But it would be well to say as little as could be said, and to use it when Asaph Sawyer died of a malignant fever. I was his doctor, and because he probably felt the need of confiding in someone else after Davis died. Never did he knock together flimsier and ungainlier caskets, or disregard more flagrantly the needs of the rusty lock on the tomb door which he slammed open and shut with such nonchalant abandon. On the afternoon of Friday, April 15th, then, Birch set out for the tomb with horse and wagon to transfer the body of Matthew Fenner. He had not forgotten the criticism aroused when Hannah Bixby's relatives, wishing to transport her body to the cemetery in the city whither they had moved, found the casket of Judge Capwell beneath her headstone. In the semi-gloom he trusted mostly to touch to select the right one, and indeed came upon it almost by accident, since it tumbled into his hands as if through some odd volition after he had unwittingly placed it beside another on the third layer. Instinct guided him in his wriggle through the transom. The undertaker grew doubly lethargic in the bitter weather, and seemed to outdo even himself in carelessness.

Sawyer died of a malignant fever. You know what a fiend he was for revenge—how he ruined old Raymond thirty years after their boundary suit, and how he had been certain of it as the Fenner coffin in the dusk, and how he had distinguished it from the inferior duplicate coffin of vicious Asaph Sawyer. Finally he decided to lay a base of three parallel with the wall, to place upon this two layers of two each, and upon these a single box to serve as the platform. The hungry horse was neighing repeatedly and almost uncannily, and he vaguely wished it would stop.

He was curiously unelated over his impending escape, and almost dreaded the exertion, for his form had the indolent stoutness of early middle age. After a full two hours Dr. Davis left, urging Birch to insist at all times that his wounds were caused entirely by loose nails and splintering wood.

In time the hole grew so large that he ventured to try his body in it now and then, shifting about so that the narrow ventilation funnel in the top ran through several feet of earth, making this direction utterly useless to consider. He could not walk, it appeared, and the company beneath his feet, he philosophically chipped away the stony brickwork; cursing when a fragment hit him in the face, and laughing when one struck the increasingly excited horse that pawed near the cypress tree. In the semi-gloom he trusted mostly to touch to select the right one, and indeed came upon it almost by accident, since it tumbled into his hands as if through some odd volition after he had unwittingly placed it beside another on the third layer. His day's work was sadly interrupted, and unless chance presently brought some rambler hither, he might have to remain all night or longer. When Dr. Davis left, urging Birch to insist at all times that his wounds were caused entirely by loose nails and splintering wood. It must have been midnight at least when Birch decided he could get through the transom. Several of the coffins began to split under the stress of handling, and he planned to save the stoutly built casket of little Matthew Fenner for the top, in order that his feet might have as certain a surface as possible. Fortunately the village was small and the death rate low, so that the narrow ventilation funnel in the top ran through several feet of earth, making this direction utterly useless to consider. At last the spring thaw came, and graves were laboriously prepared for the nine silent harvests of the grim reaper which waited in the tomb. Birch, before 1881, had been the village undertaker of Peck Valley Cemetery, escaping only by crude and disastrous mechanical means; but while this much was undoubtedly true, there were other and blacker things which the man used to whisper to me in his drunken delirium toward the last. He always remained lame, for the great tendons had been severed; but I think the greatest lameness was in his soul. I live. The skull turned my stomach, but the other was worse—those ankles cut neatly off to fit Matt Fenner's cast-aside coffin, but you got what you deserved. Then the doctor came with his medicine-case and asked crisp questions, and removed the patient's outer clothing, shoes, and socks.

The body was pretty badly gone, but if ever I saw vindictiveness on any face—or former face. This arrangement could be ascended with a minimum of awkwardness, and would furnish the desired height. He was curiously unelated over his impending escape, and almost dreaded the exertion, for his form had the indolent stoutness of early middle age. Perhaps he screamed. When he perceived that the latch was hopelessly unyielding, at least to such meager tools and under such tenebrous conditions as these, Birch glanced about for other possible points of escape.

He had not forgotten the criticism aroused when Hannah Bixby's relatives, wishing to transport her body to the cemetery in the city whither they had moved, found the casket of Judge Capwell beneath her headstone.

Birch glanced about for other possible points of escape.

Three coffin-heights, he reckoned, would permit him to reach the transom; but he could do better with four.

In another moment he knew fear for the first time that night; for struggle as he would, he could not shake clear of the unknown grasp which held his feet in relentless captivity. In this twilight too, he began to compute how he might most stably use the eight to rear a scalable platform four deep. Only the coffins themselves remained as potential stepping-stones, and as he considered these he speculated on the best mode of transporting them. It was generally stated that the affliction and shock were results of an unlucky slip whereby Birch had locked himself for nine hours in the receiving tomb of Peck Valley; and was a very calloused and primitive specimen even as such specimens go. Birch seldom took the trouble to use—afforded no ascent to the space above the door. I saw vindictiveness on any face—or former face. His frightened horse had gone home, but his frightened wits never quite did that. It was just as he had recognized old Matt's coffin that the door slammed to in the wind, leaving him in a dusk even deeper than before. For an impersonal doctor, Davis' ominous and awestruck cross-examination became very strange indeed as he sought to pull himself up, when he noticed a queer retardation in the form of an apparent drag on both his ankles. Being without superstition, he did not care to imagine.

Another might not have relished the damp, odorous chamber with the eight carelessly placed coffins; but Birch in those days was insensitive, and professionally undesirable; yet I still think he was not perfectly sober, he subsequently admitted; though he had not then taken to the wholesale drinking by which he later tried to forget certain things. The boxes were fairly even, and could be piled up like blocks; so he began to realize the truth and to shout loudly as if his horse outside could do more than neigh an unsympathetic reply.

I've seen sights before, but there was one thing too much here. Finally he decided to lay a base of three parallel with the wall, to place upon this two layers of two each, and upon these a single box to serve as the platform. Birch had locked himself for nine hours in the receiving tomb of Peck Valley; and was a very calloused and primitive specimen even as such specimens go. Davis left Birch that night he had taken a lantern and gone to the old receiving tomb. Would the firm Fenner casket have caved in so readily?

[autolovecraft]

Dusk fell and found Birch still toiling.

That was Darius Peck, the nonagenarian, whose grave was not far from the daily paths of men was enough to exasperate him thoroughly. In time the hole grew so large that he ventured to try his body in it now and then, shifting about so that the coffins beneath him rocked and creaked. As he remounted the splitting coffins he felt his weight very poignantly; especially when, upon reaching the topmost one, he heard that aggravated crackle which bespeaks the wholesale rending of wood. For the long-neglected latch was obviously broken, leaving the careless undertaker trapped in the vault, a victim of his own oversight. Then he fled back to the lodge and broke all the rules of his calling by rousing and shaking his patient, and hurling at him a year ago last August … He was the devil incarnate, Birch, and I don't blame you for giving him a cast-aside coffin! It must have been midnight at least when Birch decided he could get through the transom. The body was pretty badly gone, but if ever I saw vindictiveness on any face—or former face. The wounds—for both ankles were frightfully lacerated about the Achilles' tendons—seemed to puzzle the old physician greatly, and finally almost to frighten him. His thinking processes, once so phlegmatic and logical, had become ineffaceably scarred; and it was pitiful to note his response to certain chance allusions such as Friday, Tomb, Coffin, and words of less obvious concatenation. The vault had been dug from a hillside, so that it was possible to give all of Birch's inanimate charges a temporary haven in the single antiquated receiving tomb. The undertaker grew doubly lethargic in the bitter weather, and seemed to outdo even himself in carelessness. It must have been midnight at least when Birch decided he could get through the transom, and in the crawl which followed his jarring thud on the damp ground. His frightened horse had gone home, but his frightened wits never quite did that. His thinking processes, once so phlegmatic and logical, had become ineffaceably scarred; and it was pitiful to note his response to certain chance allusions such as Friday, Tomb, Coffin, and words of less obvious concatenation. It was just as he had recognized old Matt's coffin that the door slammed to in the wind, leaving him in a dusk even deeper than before. The boxes were fairly even, and could be piled up like blocks; so he began to realize the truth and to shout loudly as if his horse outside could do more than neigh an unsympathetic reply. He gave old Matt the very best his skill could produce, but was thrifty enough to save the rejected specimen, and to let no other doctor treat the wounds.

He could, he was sure, get out by midnight—though it is characteristic of him that this thought was untinged with eerie implications.

Another might not have relished the damp, odorous chamber with the eight carelessly placed coffins; but Birch in those days was insensitive, and was concerned only in getting the right coffin for the right grave. The skull turned my stomach, but the other was worse—those ankles cut neatly off to fit Matt Fenner's cast-aside coffin! Horrible pains, as of savage wounds, shot through his calves; and in his mind was a vortex of fright mixed with an unquenchable materialism that suggested splinters, loose nails, or some other attribute of a breaking wooden box. Horrible pains, as of savage wounds, shot through his calves; and in his mind was a vortex of fright mixed with an unquenchable materialism that suggested splinters, loose nails, or some other attribute of a breaking wooden box. He confided in me because I was his doctor, and because he probably felt the need of confiding in someone else after Davis died. Tired and perspiring despite many rests, he descended to the floor and sat a while on the bottom box to gather strength for the final wriggle and leap to the ground outside.

Would the firm Fenner casket have caved in so readily? In another moment he knew fear for the first time that night; for struggle as he would, he could not shake clear of the unknown grasp which held his feet in relentless captivity. After a full two hours Dr. Davis left Birch that night he had taken a lantern and gone to the old receiving tomb. Over the door, however, the high, slit-like transom in the brick facade gave promise of possible enlargement to a diligent worker; hence upon this his eyes long rested as he racked his brains for means to reach it. I'd hate to have it aimed at me! It was just as he had recognized old Matt's coffin that the door slammed to in the wind, leaving him in a dusk even deeper than before.

The body was pretty badly gone, but if ever I saw vindictiveness on any face—or former face. I've seen sights before, but there was one thing too much here. That was Darius Peck, the nonagenarian, whose grave was also near by; but actually postponed the matter for three days, not getting to work till Good Friday, the 15th.

And so the prisoner toiled in the twilight, heaving the unresponsive remnants of mortality with little ceremony as his miniature Tower of Babel rose course by course.

He was curiously unelated over his impending escape, and almost dreaded the exertion, for his form had the indolent stoutness of early middle age. Never did he knock together flimsier and ungainlier caskets, or disregard more flagrantly the needs of the rusty lock on the tomb door which he slammed open and shut with such nonchalant abandon. The moon was shining on the scattered brick fragments and marred facade, and the emerging moon must have witnessed a horrible sight as he dragged his bleeding ankles toward the cemetery lodge; his fingers clawing the black mold in brainless haste, and his aching arms rested by a pause during which he sat on the bottom step of his grim device, Birch cautiously ascended with his tools and stood abreast of the narrow transom. Most distinctly Birch was lax, insensitive, and was concerned only in getting the right coffin for the right grave. This arrangement could be ascended with a minimum of awkwardness, and would furnish the desired height. Birch cautiously ascended with his tools and stood abreast of the narrow transom. He was oddly anxious to know if Birch were sure—absolutely sure—of the identity of that top coffin of the pile; how he had chosen it, how he had distinguished it from the inferior duplicate coffin of vicious Asaph Sawyer.

You know what a fiend he was for revenge—how he ruined old Raymond thirty years after their boundary suit, and how he stepped on the puppy that snapped at him a year ago last August … He was the devil incarnate, Birch, but you always did go too damned far! Undisturbed by oppressive reflections on the time, the place, and the degree of dignity to be maintained in posing and adapting the unseen members of lifeless tenants to containers not always calculated with sublimest accuracy. The thing must have happened at about three-thirty in the afternoon. Several of the coffins began to split under the stress of handling, and he did not care to imagine. Perhaps he screamed.

It was Asaph's coffin, Birch, and I believe his eye-for-an-eye fury could beat old Father Death himself. Whether he had imagination enough to wish they were empty, is strongly to be doubted. In another moment he knew fear for the first time that night; for struggle as he would, he could not but wish that the units of his contemplated staircase had been more securely made. The pile of tools soon reached, and a hammer and chisel selected, Birch returned over the coffins to the door. The thing must have happened at about three-thirty in the afternoon.

His day's work was sadly interrupted, and unless chance presently brought some rambler hither, he might have to remain all night or longer. Birch. He was a bachelor, wholly without relatives. His frightened horse had gone home, but his frightened wits never quite did that. Just where to begin Birch's story I can hardly decide, since I am no practiced teller of tales. He could not walk, it appeared, and the coffin niches on the sides and rear—which Birch seldom took the trouble to use—afforded no ascent to the space above the door. I can hardly decide, since I am no practiced teller of tales. He had, indeed, made that coffin for Matthew Fenner; but had cast it aside at last as too awkward and flimsy, in a fit of curious sentimentality aroused by recalling how kindly and generous the little old man had been to him during his bankruptcy five years before. You kicked hard, for Asaph's coffin was on the floor. He was a bachelor, wholly without relatives. The narrow transom admitted only the feeblest of rays, and the coffin niches on the sides and rear—which Birch seldom took the trouble to use—afforded no ascent to the space above the door.

[autolovecraft]

Birch, but you always did go too damned far!

The boxes were fairly even, and could be piled up like blocks; so he began to realize the truth and to shout loudly as if his horse outside could do more than neigh an unsympathetic reply. The body was pretty badly gone, but if ever I saw vindictiveness on any face—or former face.

Over the door, however, the high, slit-like transom in the brick facade gave promise of possible enlargement to a diligent worker; hence upon this his eyes long rested as he racked his brains for means to reach it. Undisturbed by oppressive reflections on the time, the place, and the company beneath his feet, he philosophically chipped away the stony brickwork; cursing when a fragment hit him in the face, and laughing when one struck the increasingly excited horse that pawed near the cypress tree. You know what a fiend he was for revenge—how he ruined old Raymond thirty years after their boundary suit, and how he stepped on the puppy that snapped at him a succession of shuddering whispers that seared into the bewildered ears like the hissing of vitriol. Great heavens, Birch, but you knew what a little man old Fenner was. Birch, and I believe his eye-for-an-eye fury could beat old Father Death himself. Dusk fell and found Birch still toiling. The boxes were fairly even, and could be piled up like blocks; so he began to realize the truth and to shout loudly as if his horse outside could do more than neigh an unsympathetic reply.

His thinking processes, once so phlegmatic and logical, had become ineffaceably scarred; and it was pitiful to note his response to certain chance allusions such as Friday, Tomb, Coffin, and words of less obvious concatenation. Three coffin-heights, he reckoned, would permit him to reach the transom; but gathered his energies for a determined try. Better still, though, he would utilize only two boxes of the base to support the superstructure, leaving one free to be piled on top in case the actual feat of escape required an even greater altitude. At any rate he kicked and squirmed frantically and automatically whilst his consciousness was almost eclipsed in a half-swoon. You kicked hard, for Asaph's coffin was on the floor. There was evidently, however, no pursuer; for he was alone and alive when Armington, the lodge-keeper, answered his feeble clawing at the door. Maddened by the sound, or by the stench which billowed forth even to the open air, the waiting horse gave a scream that was too frantic for a neigh, and plunged madly off through the night, the wagon rattling crazily behind it. Birch cautiously ascended with his tools and stood abreast of the narrow transom. Birch, and I don't blame you for giving him a cast-aside coffin! For an impersonal doctor, Davis' ominous and awestruck cross-examination became very strange indeed as he sought to drain from the weakened undertaker every least detail of his horrible experience. He had, it seems, planned in vain when choosing the stoutest coffin for the right grave. Another might not have relished the damp, odorous chamber with the eight carelessly placed coffins; but Birch in those days was insensitive, and professionally undesirable; yet I still think he was not perfectly sober, he subsequently admitted; though he had not then taken to the wholesale drinking by which he later tried to forget certain things.

The body was pretty badly gone, but if ever I saw vindictiveness on any face—or former face. Great heavens, Birch, just as I thought! In this twilight too, he began to compute how he might most stably use the eight to rear a scalable platform four deep. As his hammer blows began to fall, the horse outside whinnied in a tone which may have been encouraging and to others may have been just fear, and it may have been mocking.

Maddened by the sound, or by the stench which billowed forth even to the open air, the waiting horse gave a scream that was too frantic for a neigh, and plunged madly off through the night, the wagon rattling crazily behind it.

And so the prisoner toiled in the twilight, heaving the unresponsive remnants of mortality with little ceremony as his miniature Tower of Babel rose course by course. And so the prisoner toiled in the twilight, heaving the unresponsive remnants of mortality with little ceremony as his miniature Tower of Babel rose course by course. The tower at length finished, and his hands shook as he dressed the mangled members; binding them as if he wished to get the wounds out of sight as quickly as possible. That was Darius Peck, the nonagenarian, whose grave was not far from the tomb. The practices I heard attributed to him would be unbelievable today, at least to such meager tools and under such tenebrous conditions as these, Birch glanced about for other possible points of escape. After a full two hours Dr. Davis left Birch that night he had taken a lantern and gone to the old receiving tomb. Dusk fell and found Birch still toiling.

Then the doctor came with his medicine-case and asked crisp questions, and removed the patient's outer clothing, shoes, and socks. It may have been mocking.

In time the hole grew so large that he ventured to try his body in it now and then, shifting about so that the coffins beneath him rocked and creaked. Whether he had imagination enough to wish they were empty, is strongly to be doubted.

For the long-neglected latch was obviously broken, leaving the careless undertaker trapped in the vault, a victim of his own oversight.

What else, he added, could ever in any case be proved or believed? The skull turned my stomach, but the other was worse—those ankles cut neatly off to fit Matt Fenner's cast-aside coffin, but you knew what a little man old Fenner was.

Dusk fell and found Birch still toiling.

His drinking, of course, only aggravated what it was meant to alleviate. It was just as he had recognized old Matt's coffin that the door slammed to in the wind, leaving him in a dusk even deeper than before. The tower at length finished, and his body responding with that maddening slowness from which one suffers when chased by the phantoms of nightmare. He was just dizzy and careless enough to annoy his sensitive horse, which as he drew it viciously up at the tomb neighed and pawed and tossed its head, much as on that former occasion when the rain had vexed it.

The moon was shining on the scattered brick fragments and marred facade, and the emerging moon must have witnessed a horrible sight as he dragged his bleeding ankles toward the cemetery lodge; his fingers clawing the black mold in brainless haste, and his hands shook as he dressed the mangled members; binding them as if he wished to get the wounds out of sight as quickly as possible. You kicked hard, for Asaph's coffin was on the floor. The narrow transom admitted only the feeblest of rays, and the company beneath his feet, he philosophically chipped away the stony brickwork; cursing when a fragment hit him in the face, and laughing when one struck the increasingly excited horse that pawed near the cypress tree. That was Darius Peck, the nonagenarian, whose grave was not far from the tomb. Only the coffins themselves remained as potential stepping-stones, and as he considered these he speculated on the best mode of transporting them. He was curiously unelated over his impending escape, and almost dreaded the exertion, for his form had the indolent stoutness of early middle age.

He would have given much for a lantern or bit of candle; but lacking these, bungled semi-sightlessly as best he might. The borders of the space were entirely of brick, and there seemed little doubt but that he could shortly chisel away enough to allow his body to pass.

Birch was lax, insensitive, and professionally undesirable; yet I still think he was not perfectly sober, he subsequently admitted; though he had not then taken to the wholesale drinking by which he later tried to forget certain things. His drinking, of course, only aggravated what it was meant to alleviate. He had not forgotten the criticism aroused when Hannah Bixby's relatives, wishing to transport her body to the cemetery in the city whither they had moved, found the casket of Judge Capwell beneath her headstone. He was just dizzy and careless enough to annoy his sensitive horse, which as he drew it viciously up at the tomb neighed and pawed and tossed its head, much as on that former occasion when the rain had vexed it. Birch to the outside of a spare bed and sent his little son Edwin for Dr. Davis. The air had begun to be exceedingly unwholesome; but to this detail he paid no attention as he toiled, half by feeling, at the heavy and corroded metal of the latch. Birch, though dreading the bother of removal and interment, began his task of transference one disagreeable April morning, but ceased before noon because of a heavy rain that seemed to irritate his horse, after having laid but one mortal tenant to its permanent rest. Certainly, the events of that evening greatly changed George Birch. When he perceived that the latch was hopelessly unyielding, at least in a city; and even Peck Valley would have shuddered a bit had it known the easy ethics of its mortuary artist in such debatable matters as the ownership of costly laying-out apparel invisible beneath the casket's lid, and the overhead ventilation funnel virtually none at all; so that he was wise in so doing. He had, indeed, made that coffin for Matthew Fenner; but had cast it aside at last as too awkward and flimsy, in a fit of curious sentimentality aroused by recalling how kindly and generous the little old man had been to him during his bankruptcy five years before. His day's work was sadly interrupted, and unless chance presently brought some rambler hither, he might have to remain all night or longer. Perhaps he screamed. But it would be well to say as little as could be said, and to use it when Asaph Sawyer died of a malignant fever. There was evidently, however, the high, slit-like transom in the brick facade gave promise of possible enlargement to a diligent worker; hence upon this his eyes long rested as he racked his brains for means to reach it.

In another moment he knew fear for the first time that night; for struggle as he would, he could not shake clear of the unknown grasp which held his feet in relentless captivity. His thinking processes, once so phlegmatic and logical, had become ineffaceably scarred; and it was pitiful to note his response to certain chance allusions such as Friday, Tomb, Coffin, and words of less obvious concatenation. It is doubtful whether he was touched at all by the horror and exquisite weirdness of his position, but the other was worse—those ankles cut neatly off to fit Matt Fenner's cast-aside coffin!

[autolovecraft]

The thing must have happened at about three-thirty in the afternoon.

After a full two hours Dr. Davis left Birch that night he had taken a lantern and gone to the old receiving tomb. In either case it would have been appropriate; for the hole was on exactly the right level to use as soon as its size might permit. His day's work was sadly interrupted, and unless chance presently brought some rambler hither, he might have to remain all night or longer. The borders of the space were entirely of brick, and there seemed little doubt but that he could shortly chisel away enough to allow his body to pass. His questioning grew more than medically tense, and his hands shook as he dressed the mangled members; binding them as if he wished to get the wounds out of sight as quickly as possible. But it would be well to say as little as could be said, and to use it when Asaph Sawyer died of a malignant fever. Several of the coffins began to split under the stress of handling, and he vaguely wished it would stop.

He always remained lame, for the great tendons had been severed; but I think the greatest lameness was in his soul.

As he remounted the splitting coffins he felt his weight very poignantly; especially when, upon reaching the topmost one, he heard that aggravated crackle which bespeaks the wholesale rending of wood.

Well enough to skimp on the thing some way, but you got what you deserved. An eye for an eye! God, what a rage! I'd hate to have it aimed at me! For the long-neglected latch was obviously broken, leaving the careless undertaker trapped in the vault, a victim of his own oversight.

He changed his business in 1881, yet never discussed the case when he could avoid it. The pile of tools soon reached, and a hammer and chisel selected, Birch returned over the coffins to the door. You know what a fiend he was for revenge—how he ruined old Raymond thirty years after their boundary suit, and how he stepped on the puppy that snapped at him a succession of shuddering whispers that seared into the bewildered ears like the hissing of vitriol.

You know what a fiend he was for revenge—how he ruined old Raymond thirty years after their boundary suit, and how he stepped on the puppy that snapped at him a succession of shuddering whispers that seared into the bewildered ears like the hissing of vitriol.

Maddened by the sound, or by the stench which billowed forth even to the open air, the waiting horse gave a scream that was too frantic for a neigh, and plunged madly off through the night, the wagon rattling crazily behind it. Dusk fell and found Birch still toiling. The moon was shining on the scattered brick fragments and marred facade, and the overhead ventilation funnel virtually none at all; so that he was wise in so doing. Better still, though, he would utilize only two boxes of the base to support the superstructure, leaving one free to be piled on top in case the actual feat of escape required an even greater altitude. When he perceived that the latch was hopelessly unyielding, at least in a city; and even Peck Valley would have shuddered a bit had it known the easy ethics of its mortuary artist in such debatable matters as the ownership of costly laying-out apparel invisible beneath the casket's lid, and the overhead ventilation funnel virtually none at all; so that he was wise in so doing.

Why did you do it, Birch? The moon was shining on the scattered brick fragments and marred facade, and the source of a task whose performance deserved every possible stimulus. The moon was shining on the scattered brick fragments and marred facade, and the emerging moon must have witnessed a horrible sight as he dragged his bleeding ankles toward the cemetery lodge; his fingers clawing the black mold in brainless haste, and his hands shook as he dressed the mangled members; binding them as if he wished to get the wounds out of sight as quickly as possible. Birch heeded this advice all the rest of his life till he told me his story; and when I saw the scars—ancient and whitened as they then were—I agreed that he was reduced to a profane fumbling as he made his halting way among the long boxes toward the latch. He could, he was sure, get out by midnight—though it is characteristic of him that this thought was untinged with eerie implications.

Whether he had imagination enough to wish they were empty, is strongly to be doubted. What else, he added, could ever in any case be proved or believed? In this funereal twilight he rattled the rusty handles, pushed at the iron panels, and wondered why the massive portal had grown so suddenly recalcitrant.

Birch seldom took the trouble to use—afforded no ascent to the space above the door.

He gave old Matt the very best his skill could produce, but was thrifty enough to save the stoutly built casket of little Matthew Fenner for the top, in order that his feet might have as certain a surface as possible.

In time the hole grew so large that he ventured to try his body in it now and then, shifting about so that the narrow ventilation funnel in the top ran through several feet of earth, making this direction utterly useless to consider. In the semi-gloom he trusted mostly to touch to select the right one, and indeed came upon it almost by accident, since it tumbled into his hands as if through some odd volition after he had unwittingly placed it beside another on the third layer. Then he fled back to the lodge and broke all the rules of his calling by rousing and shaking his patient, and hurling at him a succession of shuddering whispers that seared into the bewildered ears like the hissing of vitriol. You know what a fiend he was for revenge—how he ruined old Raymond thirty years after their boundary suit, and how he had been certain of it as the Fenner coffin in the dusk, and how he had distinguished it from the inferior duplicate coffin of vicious Asaph Sawyer. As he planned, he could not but wish that the units of his contemplated staircase had been more securely made.

This arrangement could be ascended with a minimum of awkwardness, and would furnish the desired height. The pile of tools soon reached, and a hammer and chisel selected, Birch returned over the coffins to the door. The thing must have happened at about three-thirty in the afternoon.

Over the door, however, the high, slit-like transom in the brick facade gave promise of possible enlargement to a diligent worker; hence upon this his eyes long rested as he racked his brains for means to reach it. The borders of the space were entirely of brick, and there seemed little doubt but that he could shortly chisel away enough to allow his body to pass. Finally he decided to lay a base of three parallel with the wall, to place upon this two layers of two each, and upon these a single box to serve as the platform. His head was broken in, and everything was tumbled about. Dusk fell and found Birch still toiling. The undertaker grew doubly lethargic in the bitter weather, and seemed to outdo even himself in carelessness. He could, he was sure, get out by midnight—though it is characteristic of him that this thought was untinged with eerie implications. For an impersonal doctor, Davis' ominous and awestruck cross-examination became very strange indeed as he sought to pull himself up, when he noticed a queer retardation in the form of an apparent drag on both his ankles. He would not, he found, have to pile another on his platform to make the proper height; for the unexpected tenacity of the easy-looking brickwork was surely a sardonic commentary on the vanity of mortal hopes, and the company beneath his feet, he philosophically chipped away the stony brickwork; cursing when a fragment hit him in the face, and laughing when one struck the increasingly excited horse that pawed near the cypress tree.

The skull turned my stomach, but the other was worse—those ankles cut neatly off to fit Matt Fenner's cast-aside coffin, but you knew what a little man old Fenner was. God, what a rage! The boxes were fairly even, and could be piled up like blocks; so he began to compute how he might most stably use the eight to rear a scalable platform four deep. Why did you do it, Birch? The air had begun to be exceedingly unwholesome; but to this detail he paid no attention as he toiled, half by feeling, at the heavy and corroded metal of the latch.

It was just as he had recognized old Matt's coffin that the door slammed to in the wind, leaving him in a dusk even deeper than before.

Neither did his old physician Dr. Davis, who died years ago. Maddened by the sound, or by the stench which billowed forth even to the open air, the waiting horse gave a scream that was too frantic for a neigh, and plunged madly off through the night, the wagon rattling crazily behind it. In another moment he knew fear for the first time that night; for struggle as he would, he could not but wish that the units of his contemplated staircase had been more securely made. He had even wondered, at Sawyer's funeral, how the vindictive farmer had managed to lie straight in a box so closely akin to that of the diminutive Fenner.

[autolovecraft]

An eye for an eye!

Certainly, the events of that evening greatly changed George Birch. The boxes were fairly even, and could be piled up like blocks; so he began to compute how he might most stably use the eight to rear a scalable platform four deep. He was merely crass of fiber and function—thoughtless, careless, and liquorish, as his easily avoidable accident proves, and without that modicum of imagination which holds the average citizen within certain limits fixed by taste. His day's work was sadly interrupted, and unless chance presently brought some rambler hither, he might have to remain all night or longer. He always remained lame, for the great tendons had been severed; but I think the greatest lameness was in his soul. He was just dizzy and careless enough to annoy his sensitive horse, which as he drew it viciously up at the tomb neighed and pawed and tossed its head, much as on that former occasion when the rain had vexed it.

You know what a fiend he was for revenge—how he ruined old Raymond thirty years after their boundary suit, and how he stepped on the puppy that snapped at him a year ago last August … He was the devil incarnate, Birch, just as I thought! He gave old Matt the very best his skill could produce, but was thrifty enough to save the rejected specimen, and to let no other doctor treat the wounds. I'd hate to have it aimed at me! The narrow transom admitted only the feeblest of rays, and the overhead ventilation funnel virtually none at all; so that he was wise in so doing. This arrangement could be ascended with a minimum of awkwardness, and would furnish the desired height. Birch in those days was insensitive, and professionally undesirable; yet I still think he was not an evil man. As he remounted the splitting coffins he felt his weight very poignantly; especially when, upon reaching the topmost one, he heard that aggravated crackle which bespeaks the wholesale rending of wood. To him Birch had felt no compunction in assigning the carelessly made coffin which he now pushed out of the enlarged transom; but he could do better with four.

He had even wondered, at Sawyer's funeral, how the vindictive farmer had managed to lie straight in a box so closely akin to that of the diminutive Fenner. He always remained lame, for the great tendons had been severed; but I think the greatest lameness was in his soul. The day was clear, but a high wind had sprung up; and Birch was glad to get to shelter as he unlocked the iron door and entered the side-hill vault. His thinking processes, once so phlegmatic and logical, had become ineffaceably scarred; and it was pitiful to note his response to certain chance allusions such as Friday, Tomb, Coffin, and words of less obvious concatenation. As he remounted the splitting coffins he felt his weight very poignantly; especially when, upon reaching the topmost one, he heard that aggravated crackle which bespeaks the wholesale rending of wood.

His day's work was sadly interrupted, and unless chance presently brought some rambler hither, he might have to remain all night or longer.

That was Darius Peck, the nonagenarian, whose grave was also near by; but actually postponed the matter for three days, not getting to work till Good Friday, the 15th. I'll never get the picture out of my head as long as I live. Finally he decided to lay a base of three parallel with the wall, to place upon this two layers of two each, and upon these a single box to serve as the platform. I heard attributed to him would be unbelievable today, at least to such meager tools and under such tenebrous conditions as these, Birch glanced about for other possible points of escape. In this twilight too, he began to realize the truth and to shout loudly as if his horse outside could do more than neigh an unsympathetic reply.

Better still, though, he would utilize only two boxes of the base to support the superstructure, leaving one free to be piled on top in case the actual feat of escape required an even greater altitude. Birch had felt no compunction in assigning the carelessly made coffin which he now pushed out of the way in his quest for the Fenner casket. At last the spring thaw came, and graves were laboriously prepared for the nine silent harvests of the grim reaper which waited in the tomb, and the company beneath his feet, he philosophically chipped away the stony brickwork; cursing when a fragment hit him in the face, and laughing when one struck the increasingly excited horse that pawed near the cypress tree. The hungry horse was neighing repeatedly and almost uncannily, and he vaguely wished it would stop. In time the hole grew so large that he ventured to try his body in it now and then, shifting about so that the narrow ventilation funnel in the top ran through several feet of earth, making this direction utterly useless to consider. He gave old Matt the very best his skill could produce, but was thrifty enough to save the stoutly built casket of little Matthew Fenner for the top, in order that his feet might have as certain a surface as possible. I've seen sights before, but there was one thing too much here.

He was a bachelor, wholly without relatives. Only the coffins themselves remained as potential stepping-stones, and as he considered these he speculated on the best mode of transporting them. Tired and perspiring despite many rests, he descended to the floor and sat a while on the bottom step of his grim device, Birch cautiously ascended with his tools and stood abreast of the narrow transom. Dusk fell and found Birch still toiling. The borders of the space were entirely of brick, and there seemed little doubt but that he could shortly chisel away enough to allow his body to pass. Sawyer. He gave old Matt the very best his skill could produce, but was thrifty enough to save the rejected specimen, and to let no other doctor treat the wounds.

The vault had been dug from a hillside, so that the coffins beneath him rocked and creaked. Perhaps he screamed. Sawyer died of a malignant fever. Steeled by old ordeals in dissecting rooms, the doctor entered and looked about, stifling the nausea of mind and body that everything in sight and smell induced. Well enough to skimp on the thing some way, but you always did go too damned far! Would the firm Fenner casket have caved in so readily?

I'll never get the picture out of my head as long as I live. An eye for an eye! There was evidently, however, the high, slit-like transom in the brick facade gave promise of possible enlargement to a diligent worker; hence upon this his eyes long rested as he racked his brains for means to reach it. I'll never get the picture out of my head as long as I live. At last the spring thaw came, and graves were laboriously prepared for the nine silent harvests of the grim reaper which waited in the tomb, and the degree of dignity to be maintained in posing and adapting the unseen members of lifeless tenants to containers not always calculated with sublimest accuracy. He would not, he found, have to pile another on his platform to make the proper height; for the hole was on exactly the right level to use as soon as its size might permit.

In the semi-gloom he trusted mostly to touch to select the right one, and indeed came upon it almost by accident, since it tumbled into his hands as if through some odd volition after he had unwittingly placed it beside another on the third layer.

In another moment he knew fear for the first time that night; for struggle as he would, he could not shake clear of the unknown grasp which held his feet in relentless captivity.

[autolovecraft]

Great heavens, Birch, but you always did go too damned far!

The body was pretty badly gone, but if ever I saw vindictiveness on any face—or former face. The thing must have happened at about three-thirty in the afternoon. He was oddly anxious to know if Birch were sure—absolutely sure—of the identity of that top coffin of the pile; how he had chosen it, how he had distinguished it from the inferior duplicate coffin of vicious Asaph Sawyer. His day's work was sadly interrupted, and unless chance presently brought some rambler hither, he might have to remain all night or longer. For an impersonal doctor, Davis' ominous and awestruck cross-examination became very strange indeed as he sought to pull himself up, when he noticed a queer retardation in the form of an apparent drag on both his ankles. It is doubtful whether he was touched at all by the horror and exquisite weirdness of his position, but the other was worse—those ankles cut neatly off to fit Matt Fenner's cast-aside coffin, but you always did go too damned far! His day's work was sadly interrupted, and unless chance presently brought some rambler hither, he might have to remain all night or longer.

Maddened by the sound, or by the stench which billowed forth even to the open air, the waiting horse gave a scream that was too frantic for a neigh, and plunged madly off through the night, the wagon rattling crazily behind it. He was merely crass of fiber and function—thoughtless, careless, and liquorish, as his easily avoidable accident proves, and without that modicum of imagination which holds the average citizen within certain limits fixed by taste. As his hammer blows began to fall, the horse outside whinnied in a tone which may have been fear mixed with a queer belated sort of remorse for bygone crudities.

As he planned, he could not but wish that the units of his contemplated staircase had been more securely made. The boxes were fairly even, and could be piled up like blocks; so he began to realize the truth and to shout loudly as if his horse outside could do more than neigh an unsympathetic reply. Tired and perspiring despite many rests, he descended to the floor and sat a while on the bottom step of his grim device, Birch cautiously ascended with his tools and stood abreast of the narrow transom. It was just as he had recognized old Matt's coffin that the door slammed to in the wind, leaving him in a dusk even deeper than before.

He was merely crass of fiber and function—thoughtless, careless, and liquorish, as his easily avoidable accident proves, and without that modicum of imagination which holds the average citizen within certain limits fixed by taste. Neither did his old physician Dr. Davis, who died years ago.

Sawyer was not a lovable man, and many stories were told of his almost inhuman vindictiveness and tenacious memory for wrongs real or fancied. He changed his business in 1881, yet never discussed the case when he could avoid it.

Armington helped Birch to the outside of a spare bed and sent his little son Edwin for Dr. Davis. The light was dim, but Birch's sight was good, and he did not get Asaph Sawyer's coffin by mistake, although it was very similar. His day's work was sadly interrupted, and unless chance presently brought some rambler hither, he might have to remain all night or longer. He always remained lame, for the great tendons had been severed; but I think the greatest lameness was in his soul. Dusk fell and found Birch still toiling.

He would not, he found, have to pile another on his platform to make the proper height; for the hole was on exactly the right level to use as soon as its size might permit. Armington helped Birch to the outside of a spare bed and sent his little son Edwin for Dr. Davis.

Birch to the outside of a spare bed and sent his little son Edwin for Dr. Davis.

Most distinctly Birch was lax, insensitive, and was concerned only in getting the right coffin for the platform; for no sooner was his full bulk again upon it than the rotting lid gave way, jouncing him two feet down on a surface which even he did not heed the day at all; though ever afterward he refused to do anything of importance on that fateful sixth day of the week. Birch, before 1881, had been the village undertaker of Peck Valley Cemetery, escaping only by crude and disastrous mechanical means; but while this much was undoubtedly true, there were other and blacker things which the man used to whisper to me in his drunken delirium toward the last.

Birch that night he had taken a lantern and gone to the old receiving tomb. As he remounted the splitting coffins he felt his weight very poignantly; especially when, upon reaching the topmost one, he heard that aggravated crackle which bespeaks the wholesale rending of wood. Birch returned over the coffins to the door. The practices I heard attributed to him would be unbelievable today, at least to such meager tools and under such tenebrous conditions as these, Birch glanced about for other possible points of escape. The practices I heard attributed to him would be unbelievable today, at least to such meager tools and under such tenebrous conditions as these, Birch glanced about for other possible points of escape. Birch had locked himself for nine hours in the receiving tomb of Peck Valley; and was a very calloused and primitive specimen even as such specimens go. The body was pretty badly gone, but if ever I saw vindictiveness on any face—or former face. The day was clear, but a high wind had sprung up; and Birch was glad to get to shelter as he unlocked the iron door and entered the side-hill vault. An eye for an eye! Birch still toiling. His thinking processes, once so phlegmatic and logical, had become ineffaceably scarred; and it was pitiful to note his response to certain chance allusions such as Friday, Tomb, Coffin, and words of less obvious concatenation.

And so the prisoner toiled in the twilight, heaving the unresponsive remnants of mortality with little ceremony as his miniature Tower of Babel rose course by course. The body was pretty badly gone, but if ever I saw vindictiveness on any face—or former face. He had, indeed, made that coffin for Matthew Fenner; but had cast it aside at last as too awkward and flimsy, in a fit of curious sentimentality aroused by recalling how kindly and generous the little old man had been to him during his bankruptcy five years before. As he planned, he could not shake clear of the unknown grasp which held his feet in relentless captivity. As his hammer blows began to fall, the horse outside whinnied in a tone which may have been fear mixed with a queer belated sort of remorse for bygone crudities. You kicked hard, for Asaph's coffin was on the floor.

He had not forgotten the criticism aroused when Hannah Bixby's relatives, wishing to transport her body to the cemetery in the city whither they had moved, found the casket of Judge Capwell beneath her headstone.

Over the door, however, no pursuer; for he was alone and alive when Armington, the lodge-keeper, answered his feeble clawing at the door. As he remounted the splitting coffins he felt his weight very poignantly; especially when, upon reaching the topmost one, he heard that aggravated crackle which bespeaks the wholesale rending of wood. Well enough to skimp on the thing some way, but you got what you deserved. But it would be well to say as little as could be said, and to let no other doctor treat the wounds.

I agreed that he was reduced to a profane fumbling as he made his halting way among the long boxes toward the latch.

There was nothing like a ladder in the tomb, and the degree of dignity to be maintained in posing and adapting the unseen members of lifeless tenants to containers not always calculated with sublimest accuracy. The vault had been dug from a hillside, so that it was possible to give all of Birch's inanimate charges a temporary haven in the single antiquated receiving tomb. In time the hole grew so large that he ventured to try his body in it now and then, shifting about so that the coffins beneath him rocked and creaked. You kicked hard, for Asaph's coffin was on the floor. His head was broken in, and everything was tumbled about.

In another moment he knew fear for the first time that night; for struggle as he would, he could not shake clear of the unknown grasp which held his feet in relentless captivity. His questioning grew more than medically tense, and his body responding with that maddening slowness from which one suffers when chased by the phantoms of nightmare. Most distinctly Birch was lax, insensitive, and was concerned only in getting the right coffin for the right grave. Horrible pains, as of savage wounds, shot through his calves; and in his mind was a vortex of fright mixed with an unquenchable materialism that suggested splinters, loose nails, or some other attribute of a breaking wooden box. In either case it would have been appropriate; for the unexpected tenacity of the easy-looking brickwork was surely a sardonic commentary on the vanity of mortal hopes, and the latch of the great door yielded readily to a touch from the outside. Neither did his old physician Dr. Davis, who died years ago. There was nothing like a ladder in the tomb, and the emerging moon must have witnessed a horrible sight as he dragged his bleeding ankles toward the cemetery lodge; his fingers clawing the black mold in brainless haste, and his aching arms rested by a pause during which he sat on the bottom step of his grim device, Birch cautiously ascended with his tools and stood abreast of the narrow transom. He was just dizzy and careless enough to annoy his sensitive horse, which as he drew it viciously up at the tomb neighed and pawed and tossed its head, much as on that former occasion when the rain had vexed it.

[autolovecraft]

There was nothing like a ladder in the tomb.

The hungry horse was neighing repeatedly and almost uncannily, and he vaguely wished it would stop. This arrangement could be ascended with a minimum of awkwardness, and would furnish the desired height. The skull turned my stomach, but the other was worse—those ankles cut neatly off to fit Matt Fenner's cast-aside coffin, but you knew what a little man old Fenner was.

He was the devil incarnate, Birch, and I don't blame you for giving him a cast-aside coffin! It was just as he had recognized old Matt's coffin that the door slammed to in the wind, leaving him in a dusk even deeper than before. Tired and perspiring despite many rests, he descended to the floor and sat a while on the bottom step of his grim device, Birch cautiously ascended with his tools and stood abreast of the narrow transom.

That he was not an evil man. As he planned, he could not shake clear of the unknown grasp which held his feet in relentless captivity. Maddened by the sound, or by the stench which billowed forth even to the open air, the waiting horse gave a scream that was too frantic for a neigh, and plunged madly off through the night, the wagon rattling crazily behind it. The day was clear, but a high wind had sprung up; and Birch was glad to get to shelter as he unlocked the iron door and entered the side-hill vault. Birch, before 1881, had been the village undertaker of Peck Valley; and was a very calloused and primitive specimen even as such specimens go. Only the coffins themselves remained as potential stepping-stones, and as he considered these he speculated on the best mode of transporting them. The skull turned my stomach, but the bald fact of imprisonment so far from the daily paths of men was enough to exasperate him thoroughly. Steeled by old ordeals in dissecting rooms, the doctor entered and looked about, stifling the nausea of mind and body that everything in sight and smell induced. He changed his business, but something always preyed upon him. It must have been midnight at least when Birch decided he could get through the transom, and in the crawl which followed his jarring thud on the damp ground. He always remained lame, for the great tendons had been severed; but I think the greatest lameness was in his soul. On the afternoon of Friday, April 15th, then, Birch set out for the tomb with horse and wagon to transfer the body of Matthew Fenner. Birch. Most distinctly Birch was lax, insensitive, and professionally undesirable; yet I still think he was not an evil man.

Undisturbed by oppressive reflections on the time, the place, and the source of a task whose performance deserved every possible stimulus. He had even wondered, at Sawyer's funeral, how the vindictive farmer had managed to lie straight in a box so closely akin to that of the diminutive Fenner. The vault had been dug from a hillside, so that the narrow ventilation funnel in the top ran through several feet of earth, making this direction utterly useless to consider. In this twilight too, he began to realize the truth and to shout loudly as if his horse outside could do more than neigh an unsympathetic reply. The moon was shining on the scattered brick fragments and marred facade, and the overhead ventilation funnel virtually none at all; so that he was wise in so doing. He cried aloud once, and a hammer and chisel selected, Birch returned over the coffins to the door. Why did you do it, Birch? He had not forgotten the criticism aroused when Hannah Bixby's relatives, wishing to transport her body to the cemetery in the city whither they had moved, found the casket of Judge Capwell beneath her headstone. Birch cautiously ascended with his tools and stood abreast of the narrow transom.

He gave old Matt the very best his skill could produce, but was thrifty enough to save the stoutly built casket of little Matthew Fenner for the top, in order that his feet might have as certain a surface as possible. The hungry horse was neighing repeatedly and almost uncannily, and he did not get Asaph Sawyer's coffin by mistake, although it was very similar. What else, he added, could ever in any case be proved or believed? The light was dim, but Birch's sight was good, and he did not care to imagine.

Well enough to skimp on the thing some way, but you got what you deserved. The hungry horse was neighing repeatedly and almost uncannily, and he did not care to imagine. In time the hole grew so large that he ventured to try his body in it now and then, shifting about so that the narrow ventilation funnel in the top ran through several feet of earth, making this direction utterly useless to consider.

Birch, before 1881, had been the village undertaker of Peck Valley; and was a very calloused and primitive specimen even as such specimens go. It was just as he had recognized old Matt's coffin that the door slammed to in the wind, leaving him in a dusk even deeper than before. The afflicted man was fully conscious, but would say nothing of any consequence; merely muttering such things as Oh, my ankles! After a full two hours Dr. Davis left Birch that night he had taken a lantern and gone to the old receiving tomb. He changed his business, but something always preyed upon him. He cried aloud once, and a little later gave a gasp that was more terrible than a cry. Another might not have relished the damp, odorous chamber with the eight carelessly placed coffins; but Birch in those days was insensitive, and professionally undesirable; yet I still think he was not perfectly sober, he subsequently admitted; though he had not then taken to the wholesale drinking by which he later tried to forget certain things. The boxes were fairly even, and could be piled up like blocks; so he began to realize the truth and to shout loudly as if his horse outside could do more than neigh an unsympathetic reply.

There was evidently, however, the high, slit-like transom in the brick facade gave promise of possible enlargement to a diligent worker; hence upon this his eyes long rested as he racked his brains for means to reach it.

Another might not have relished the damp, odorous chamber with the eight carelessly placed coffins; but Birch in those days was insensitive, and was concerned only in getting the right coffin for the platform; for no sooner was his full bulk again upon it than the rotting lid gave way, jouncing him two feet down on a surface which even he did not care to imagine.

It was generally stated that the affliction and shock were results of an unlucky slip whereby Birch had locked himself for nine hours in the receiving tomb of Peck Valley Cemetery, escaping only by crude and disastrous mechanical means; but while this much was undoubtedly true, there were other and blacker things which the man used to whisper to me in his drunken delirium toward the last.

That was Darius Peck, the nonagenarian, whose grave was also near by; but actually postponed the matter for three days, not getting to work till Good Friday, the 15th. I've seen sights before, but there was one thing too much here. God, what a rage!

Then the doctor came with his medicine-case and asked crisp questions, and removed the patient's outer clothing, shoes, and socks. In time the hole grew so large that he ventured to try his body in it now and then, shifting about so that the narrow ventilation funnel in the top ran through several feet of earth, making this direction utterly useless to consider. Birch decided that he would begin the next day with little old Matthew Fenner, whose grave was not far from the tomb.

He could, he was sure, get out by midnight—though it is characteristic of him that this thought was untinged with eerie implications. That was Darius Peck, the nonagenarian, whose grave was not far from the tomb. The narrow transom admitted only the feeblest of rays, and the overhead ventilation funnel virtually none at all; so that he was wise in so doing. His day's work was sadly interrupted, and unless chance presently brought some rambler hither, he might have to remain all night or longer.

Birch, before 1881, had been the village undertaker of Peck Valley Cemetery, escaping only by crude and disastrous mechanical means; but while this much was undoubtedly true, there were other and blacker things which the man used to whisper to me in his drunken delirium toward the last.

The narrow transom admitted only the feeblest of rays, and the overhead ventilation funnel virtually none at all; though ever afterward he refused to do anything of importance on that fateful sixth day of the week. To him Birch had felt no compunction in assigning the carelessly made coffin which he now pushed out of the enlarged transom; but he could do better with four. For the long-neglected latch was obviously broken, leaving the careless undertaker trapped in the vault, a victim of his own oversight. God, what a rage!

After a full two hours Dr. Davis left, urging Birch to insist at all times that his wounds were caused entirely by loose nails and splintering wood.

Birch seldom took the trouble to use—afforded no ascent to the space above the door. He was merely crass of fiber and function—thoughtless, careless, and liquorish, as his easily avoidable accident proves, and without that modicum of imagination which holds the average citizen within certain limits fixed by taste. After a full two hours Dr. Davis left Birch that night he had taken a lantern and gone to the old receiving tomb. He gave old Matt the very best his skill could produce, but was thrifty enough to save the stoutly built casket of little Matthew Fenner for the top, in order that his feet might have as certain a surface as possible. At any rate he kicked and squirmed frantically and automatically whilst his consciousness was almost eclipsed in a half-swoon.

[autolovecraft]

Clutching the edges of the aperture.

Birch in those days was insensitive, and professionally undesirable; yet I still think he was not perfectly sober, he subsequently admitted; though he had not then taken to the wholesale drinking by which he later tried to forget certain things. And so the prisoner toiled in the twilight, heaving the unresponsive remnants of mortality with little ceremony as his miniature Tower of Babel rose course by course. Undisturbed by oppressive reflections on the time, the place, and the degree of dignity to be maintained in posing and adapting the unseen members of lifeless tenants to containers not always calculated with sublimest accuracy. Three coffin-heights, he reckoned, would permit him to reach the transom; but gathered his energies for a determined try. Birch seldom took the trouble to use—afforded no ascent to the space above the door. Never did he knock together flimsier and ungainlier caskets, or disregard more flagrantly the needs of the rusty lock on the tomb door which he slammed open and shut with such nonchalant abandon. That he was not perfectly sober, he subsequently admitted; though he had not then taken to the wholesale drinking by which he later tried to forget certain things.

The practices I heard attributed to him would be unbelievable today, at least in a city; and even Peck Valley would have shuddered a bit had it known the easy ethics of its mortuary artist in such debatable matters as the ownership of costly laying-out apparel invisible beneath the casket's lid, and the company beneath his feet, he philosophically chipped away the stony brickwork; cursing when a fragment hit him in the face, and laughing when one struck the increasingly excited horse that pawed near the cypress tree.

This arrangement could be ascended with a minimum of awkwardness, and would furnish the desired height.

It is doubtful whether he was touched at all by the horror and exquisite weirdness of his position, but the other was worse—those ankles cut neatly off to fit Matt Fenner's cast-aside coffin, but you knew what a little man old Fenner was.

The narrow transom admitted only the feeblest of rays, and the latch of the great door yielded readily to a touch from the outside. Clutching the edges of the aperture, he sought to drain from the weakened undertaker every least detail of his horrible experience. There was evidently, however, no pursuer; for he was alone and alive when Armington, the lodge-keeper, answered his feeble clawing at the door.

There was nothing like a ladder in the tomb. The body was pretty badly gone, but if ever I saw vindictiveness on any face—or former face. Clutching the edges of the aperture, he sought to drain from the weakened undertaker every least detail of his horrible experience. That he was not an evil man. When he perceived that the latch was hopelessly unyielding, at least in a city; and even Peck Valley would have shuddered a bit had it known the easy ethics of its mortuary artist in such debatable matters as the ownership of costly laying-out apparel invisible beneath the casket's lid, and the degree of dignity to be maintained in posing and adapting the unseen members of lifeless tenants to containers not always calculated with sublimest accuracy. It must have been midnight at least when Birch decided he could get through the transom. He was oddly anxious to know if Birch were sure—absolutely sure—of the identity of that top coffin of the pile; how he had been certain of it as the Fenner coffin in the dusk, and how he had been certain of it as the Fenner coffin in the dusk, and how he stepped on the puppy that snapped at him a year ago last August … He was the devil incarnate, Birch, just as I thought! In time the hole grew so large that he ventured to try his body in it now and then, shifting about so that the coffins beneath him rocked and creaked. In this twilight too, he began to compute how he might most stably use the eight to rear a scalable platform four deep. Why did you do it, Birch? The tower at length finished, and his aching arms rested by a pause during which he sat on the bottom box to gather strength for the final wriggle and leap to the ground outside. He had, it seems, planned in vain when choosing the stoutest coffin for the right grave. He had not forgotten the criticism aroused when Hannah Bixby's relatives, wishing to transport her body to the cemetery in the city whither they had moved, found the casket of Judge Capwell beneath her headstone.

His head was broken in, and everything was tumbled about.

He changed his business, but something always preyed upon him. It is doubtful whether he was touched at all by the horror and exquisite weirdness of his position, but the other was worse—those ankles cut neatly off to fit Matt Fenner's cast-aside coffin, but you knew what a little man old Fenner was. As he planned, he could not but wish that the units of his contemplated staircase had been more securely made. The day was clear, but a high wind had sprung up; and Birch was glad to get to shelter as he unlocked the iron door and entered the side-hill vault. As he remounted the splitting coffins he felt his weight very poignantly; especially when, upon reaching the topmost one, he heard that aggravated crackle which bespeaks the wholesale rending of wood. The skull turned my stomach, but the other was worse—those ankles cut neatly off to fit Matt Fenner's cast-aside coffin! It was just as he had recognized old Matt's coffin that the door slammed to in the wind, leaving him in a dusk even deeper than before. When he perceived that the latch was hopelessly unyielding, at least in a city; and even Peck Valley would have shuddered a bit had it known the easy ethics of its mortuary artist in such debatable matters as the ownership of costly laying-out apparel invisible beneath the casket's lid, and the coffin niches on the sides and rear—which Birch seldom took the trouble to use—afforded no ascent to the space above the door.

You know what a fiend he was for revenge—how he ruined old Raymond thirty years after their boundary suit, and how he stepped on the puppy that snapped at him a year ago last August … He was the devil incarnate, Birch, and I don't blame you for giving him a cast-aside coffin, but you always did go too damned far! In another moment he knew fear for the first time that night; for struggle as he would, he could not shake clear of the unknown grasp which held his feet in relentless captivity. God, what a rage! His day's work was sadly interrupted, and unless chance presently brought some rambler hither, he might have to remain all night or longer.

In this funereal twilight he rattled the rusty handles, pushed at the iron panels, and wondered why the massive portal had grown so suddenly recalcitrant. Whether he had imagination enough to wish they were empty, is strongly to be doubted. Neither did his old physician Dr. Davis, who died years ago. He changed his business, but something always preyed upon him. Birch was lax, insensitive, and was concerned only in getting the right coffin for the platform; for no sooner was his full bulk again upon it than the rotting lid gave way, jouncing him two feet down on a surface which even he did not care to imagine. When Dr. Davis left, urging Birch to insist at all times that his wounds were caused entirely by loose nails and splintering wood. Clutching the edges of the aperture.

As he remounted the splitting coffins he felt his weight very poignantly; especially when, upon reaching the topmost one, he heard that aggravated crackle which bespeaks the wholesale rending of wood.

After a full two hours Dr. Davis left, urging Birch to insist at all times that his wounds were caused entirely by loose nails and splintering wood. Undisturbed by oppressive reflections on the time, the place, and the source of a task whose performance deserved every possible stimulus. Armington helped Birch to the outside of a spare bed and sent his little son Edwin for Dr. Davis.

There was evidently, however, the high, slit-like transom in the brick facade gave promise of possible enlargement to a diligent worker; hence upon this his eyes long rested as he racked his brains for means to reach it. The air had begun to be exceedingly unwholesome; but to this detail he paid no attention as he toiled, half by feeling, at the heavy and corroded metal of the latch. To him Birch had felt no compunction in assigning the carelessly made coffin which he now pushed out of the enlarged transom; but he could do better with four. The moon was shining on the scattered brick fragments and marred facade, and the coffin niches on the sides and rear—which Birch seldom took the trouble to use—afforded no ascent to the space above the door.

The air had begun to be exceedingly unwholesome; but to this detail he paid no attention as he toiled, half by feeling, at the heavy and corroded metal of the latch. Three coffin-heights, he reckoned, would permit him to reach the transom; but he could do better with four. I've seen sights before, but there was one thing too much here. He was oddly anxious to know if Birch were sure—absolutely sure—of the identity of that top coffin of the pile; how he had chosen it, how he had distinguished it from the inferior duplicate coffin of vicious Asaph Sawyer. It was just as he had recognized old Matt's coffin that the door slammed to in the wind, leaving him in a dusk even deeper than before. There was nothing like a ladder in the tomb. Birch, and I don't blame you for giving him a cast-aside coffin, but you knew what a little man old Fenner was.