How did Herbert die in "The Monkey's Paw"?

The following quote from "The Monkey's Paw" is a clue to the kind of factory in which the accident occurred.

"I--was asked to call," he said at last, and stooped and picked a piece of cotton from his trousers. "I come from 'Maw and Meggins.'"

The visitor from Maw and Meggins must have picked up the little piece of cotton at the factory, since there would have been none around the Whites' home. Herbert must have worked in a textile manufacturing plant, where there would have been plenty of bits of cotton in the air. The visitor himself is obviously an e executive and would be wearing a woolen suit, which could easily pick up a bit of floating lint. He is a fastidious man and would work in an office, not near the machinery. His gesture of removing the piece of cotton from his trousers suggests that he had to visit the scene of the accident. There were many such textile plants in England, of course. That was where and how the Industrial Revolution started. The cotton came from the Deep South in America, but slavery had ended there with the Civil War and the Emancipation Proclamation. 

There was a natural explanation for Herbert's accident. He had stayed up late the night before and had drunk more whiskey than usual because of the visitor from India. When he went to work he might have been groggy and somewhat drowsy. The Sergeant-Major had explained that the wishes were fulfilled in such a way that they could seem like sheer coincidences.