W. C. Fields : his follies and fortunes (1949)

the buckboard, a farmer, had no connection with the funeral but had been caught behind it on his way home from a lumberyard and was having some little difficulty getting around. A group of urchins, indifferently attired, was strung out behind the buckboard, alternately running and walking, whispering, giggling and peering. Snavely himself, superbly got up in a cutaway, a pair of striped trousers, and a dismal black bowler encircled by a wide band of crepe whose ends trailed off behind him, was walking at the head of this imposing column. His face was arranged in an expression of crushed but competent unction. Fields was impressed by the fact that, although it was midsummer and several of the mourners were clearly sweltering, one or two men having even slipped out of their jackets, Snavely seemed free of perspiration and discomfort. His smooth, bland, elongated face suggested that, in the matter of living, he had struck a nice balance between this world and the next and, though perpetually bereaved, was invulnerable to the annoyances of both. Flanking the procession, at no great distance, were a number of lesser functionaries, part-time employees of the mortuary, whom Snavely had been trying out recently, in a bid for the fashionable trade. They were known as "howlers," and operated as a kind of lachrymose claque, to help bring up the noise in weak or tiring groups. One of these, a youth in his teens, wearing a makeshift costume built around an outsized tuxedo jacket and making passes at his face with a handkerchief, trotted up alongside the leader as Fields hove into earshot near the curb. "Everything comfortable astern?" asked Snavely. "I'm having a little trouble with number seven, sir," said the youth. "Friends or relatives?" 135