On learning of Mr Headstone's untimely demise, Mr Swiveller - as a longtime drinking companion of that unfortunate gentleman - felt it incumbent upon himself to inform the acquaintances of the late pedagogue of the sad tidings and to consult with them on the most fitting manner in which they might pay their final respects. Wrapping a ribbon of black crepe around his hat, he set forth to find Mr Simon Tappertit, whose unrivalled knowledge of rituals and secret handshakes made him the font of all wisdom in matters relating to the arrangement of both public and private ceremonies.
Mr Swiveller stopped at a house from whose defaced and rotten front the rude effigy of a bottle swung to and fro like some gibbeted malefactor, and struck thrice upon an iron grating with his boot. The ground seemed to open at his feet and a ragged head appeared. On the provision of a secret password, the clerk was admitted into a vault, the floors of which were of sodden earth, the walls and roof of damp bare brick tapestried with the tracks of snails and slugs, and the close air tainted with an overpowering odour of mouldy cheese. Here, enthroned on a chair of state mounted on a large table and cheerfully ornamented with a couple of skulls, sat Mr Tappertit, dressed in the finery of his office, that being the Captain of the secret society of the 'Prentice Knights.
Mr Swiveller, being a Perpetual Grand of the Lodge of Glorious Apollos, was quite naturally an honorary member of the society of the 'Prentice Knights, and for this distinction he had bestowed upon Mr Tappertit a reciprocal titular honour within the lodge. In consequence of these mutual arrangements, it was necessary for both parties to perform a series of winks, nods, handshakes, rubbing of elbows and tapping of noses whenever they greeted each other as a sign and a mark of their brotherhood. Having given these formalities their due, Mr Swiveller at once informed Mr Tappertit of his melancholy news whereupon that gentleman called for a minute's silence, which interrupted not only the general conversation of the apprentices gathered there but also the progress of a game of skittles that was taking place in a corner of the room. At the conclusion of the minute - or, perhaps, a little before - the revelries were resumed, and the two distinguished leaders of the two distinguished societies began to consider how best to memorialise one of their late members.
Mr Charles Dickens
