Cricketer v. Crofter

The Undertaker's a man in early old age. He wears jeans and a tattered, long-sleeved flannel shirt - even the hottest weather - over a tall, stooped, sinewy frame. His face is long and coarse and dark, peppered stubble rising just a half-inch from his sunken eyes. His teeth are yellow, with specs of decay against the gums, red and inflamed. He smokes cigarettes rolled from a pouch of loose leaf tobacco kept in his back pocket. There's a deep cynicism about him, and he wears no ring.

It's noted that he drives to and from the burial ground in an old, filthy pick-up, with a cab mostly denuded of paint, with paint flaking off in small chips revealing the gray plastic underneath. Where he lives is a mystery.

It's on the topic of the Undertaker that the Cricketer speaks to Pepple.

See here, good fellow, says the Cricketer, I hate to be so vocal over this, but your man there shows terrible class - a sort of violent eagerness - when first stripping the bodies for burial.

The Cricketer speaks with a clipped accent. His tone is affable, but direct.

I understand the difficulty in finding help - especially in these times! - but the tremendous enthusiasm by which the old whosit goes about his job is apt to strike one as, well, considering the task performed, somewhat disrespectful to the soul of the departed, you understand.

Pepple takes the Cricketer's complaint under submission.

The Crofter arrives much later. Given that she is in every way an insufferable bore, there's no need to recount any of the discussion between the duelists.

They raise their guns, their guns go off.