He was in liquor, and more brutal and pitiless in his way of looking and speaking than ever I saw him before.
"So you're going to be fool enough to pay for her funeral, are you ?" were his first words to me.
I was too weary and heart-sick to answer; I only tried to get by him to my own door.
"If you can pay for burying her," he went on, putting himself in front of me, "you can pay her lawful debts.

She owes me three weeks' rent.
Suppose you raise the money for that next, and hand it over to me?
I'm not joking, I can promise you.

I mean to have my rent; and, if somebody don't pay it, I'll have her body seized and sent to the workhouse!" Between terror and disgust, I thought I should have dropped to the floor at his feet.

But I determined not to let him see how he had horrified me, if I could possibly control myself.

So I mustered resolution enough to answer that I did not believe the law gave him any such wicked power over the dead.
"I'll teach you what the law is!" he broke in; "you'll raise money to bury her like a born lady, when she's died in my debt, will you?
And you think I'll let my rights be trampled upon like that, do you?
See if I do! I'll give you till to-night to think about it.