and
(what's better) they've been all discharged. O, come, I think this is
another case of moral courage! I'll deny all knowledge of the thing.'

A moment more, and he stood again before the Hercules, his lips sternly
compressed, the coal-axe and the meat-cleaver under his arm. The next,
he had fallen upon the packing-case. This had been already seriously
undermined by the operations of Gideon; a few well-directed blows, and
it already quaked and gaped; yet a few more, and it fell about Morris in
a shower of boards followed by an avalanche of straw.

And now the leather-merchant could behold the nature of his task: and at
the first sight his spirit quailed. It was, indeed, no more ambitious a
task for De Lesseps, with all his men and horses, to attack the hills
of Panama, than for a single, slim young gentleman, with no previous
experience of labour in a quarry, to measure himself against that
bloated monster on his pedestal. And yet the pair were well encountered:
on the one side, bulk--on the other, genuine heroic fire.

'Down you shall come, you great big, ugly brute!' cried Morris aloud,
with something of that passion which swept the Parisian mob against the
walls of the Bastille. 'Down you shall come, this night. I'll have none
of you in my lobby.'

The face, from its indecent expression, had particularly animated the
zeal of our iconoclast; and it was against the face that he began his
operations. The great height of the demigod--for he stood a fathom
and half in his stocking-feet--offered a preliminary obstacle to this
attack. But here, in the first skirmish of the battle, intellect already
began to triumph over matter. By means of a pair of library steps,
the injured householder gained a posture of advantage; and, with great
swipes of the coal-axe, proceeded to decapitate the brute.

Two hours later, what had been the erect image of a gigantic coal-porter
turned miraculously white, was now no more than a medley of disjected
members; the quadragenarian torso prone against the pedestal; the
lascivious countenance leering down the kitchen stair; the legs, the
arms, the hands, and even the fingers, scattered broadcast on the lobby
floor. Half an hour more, and all the debris had been laboriously carted
to the kitchen; and Morris, with a gentle sentiment of triumph, looked
round upon the scene of his achievements. Yes, he could deny all
knowledge of it now: the lobby, beyond the fact that it was partly
ruinous, b