We crossed the room to the coffin, which was plainly finished with zinc fastenings, in accordance with the regulations of the cremation authorities, and had let into the top what I first took to be a pane of glass, but which turned out to be a plate of clear celluloid. When we had made our salutations to Mr. Morris, Cropper and I looked in through the celluloid window. The yellow, shrunken face of the dead man, surmounted by the skull cap which he had always worn, looked so little changed that he might still have been in the drowsy, torpid state in which I had been accustomed to see him. He had always looked so like a dead man that the final transition was hardly noticeable.
“I suppose,” said Morris, “you would like to have the coffin-lid taken off?”
“God bless my soul, yes!” exclaimed C
