Three A FUNERAL

“Funerals are rather sad, aren’t they?” said Tuppence.
They had just returned from attending Aunt Ada’s funeral, which hadentailed a long and troublesome railway journey since the burial hadtaken place at the country village in Lincolnshire where most of AuntAda’s family and forebears had been buried.
“What do you expect a funeral to be?” said Tommy reasonably. “A sceneof mad gaiety?”
“Well, it could be in some places,” said Tuppence. “I mean the Irish en-joy a wake, don’t they? They have a lot of keening and wailing¹ first andthen plenty of drink and a sort of mad whoopee. Drink?” she added, with alook towards the sideboard.
Tommy went over to it and duly brought back what he considered ap-propriate. In this case a White Lady.
“Ah, that’s more like it,” said Tuppence.
She took off her black hat and threw it across the room and slipped offher long black coat.
“I hate mourning,” she said. “It always smells of moth² balls because it’sbeen laid up somewhere.”
“You don’t need to go on wearing mourning. It’s only to go to the funeralin,” said Tommy.
“Oh no, I know that. In a minute or two I’m going to go up and put on ascarlet jersey³ just to cheer things up. You can make me another WhiteLady.”
“Really, Tuppence, I had no idea that funerals would bring out this partyfeeling.”
“I said funerals were sad,” said Tuppence when she reappeared a mo-ment or two later, wearing a brilliant cherry-red dress with a ruby⁴ anddiamond lizard⁵ pinned to the shoulder of it, “because it’s funerals likeAunt Ada’s that are sad. I mean elderly people and not many flowers. Nota lot of people sobbing⁶ and sniffing⁷ round. Someone old and lonely whowon’t be missed much.”
“I should have thought it would be much easier for you to stand thatthan it would if it were my funeral, for instance.”

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