I heard the nasal voice of Shadrack: ‘Haven’t you anything to do upstairs, Stamp?’ and Stamp, crashing his voice into second gear to simulate something approaching respect, saying: ‘Just waiting to go into the toilet, Mr Shadrack.’

‘Yes, it’s thought some of you spend too much time down here. Far too much time,’ said Shadrack. He picked at words as other people picked at spots.

Shadrack was not the stock cartoon undertaker, although he would have made a good model for other stock cartoons, notably the one concerning the psychiatrist’s couch. He was, for a start, only about twenty-five years old, although grown old with quick experience, like forced rhubarb. His general approach and demeanour was that of a second-hand car salesman, and he had in fact at one time been one in the south. He was in the undertaking business because his old man was in it before him and old Shadrack had been, so to speak, young Shadrack’s first account. After that he rarely attended funerals and would indeed have found it difficult in view of the R.A.F. blazer and the canary-coloured pullover which, sported being the word, he sported. But he was useful to the firm in that, besides having inherited half of it, he could get round old ladies. He was a member of most churches in Stradhoughton and to my certain knowledge was a card-carrying Unitarian, a Baptist, a Methodist, and both High and Low Church.