in a
preliminary trembling of the sentry-boxes, and a sudden disappearance of
the major at the back of the clock.

The performance began with the opening of the sentry-box on the
right-hand side of the platform, as punctually as could be desired;
the door on the other side, however, was less tractable--it remained
obstinately closed. Unaware of this hitch in the proceedings, the
corporal and his two privates appeared in their places in a state
of perfect discipline, tottered out across the platform, all three
trembling in every limb, dashed themselves headlong against the closed
door on the other side, and failed in producing the smallest impression
on the immovable sentry presumed to be within. An intermittent clicking,
as of the major's keys and tools at work, was heard in the machinery.
The corporal and his two privates suddenly returned, backward, across
the platform, and shut themselves up with a bang inside their own door.
Exactly at the same moment, the other door opened for the first time,
and the provoking sentry appeared with the utmost deliberation at his
post, waiting to be relieved. He was allowed to wait. Nothing happened
in the other box but an occasional knocking inside the door, as if the
corporal and his privates were impatient to be let out. The clicking of
the major's tools was heard again among the machinery; the corporal and
his party, suddenly restored to liberty, appeared in a violent hurry,
and spun furiously across the platform. Quick as they were, however,
the hitherto deliberate sentry on the other side now perversely showed
himself to be quicker still. He disappeared like lightning into his
own premises, the door closed smartly after him, the corporal and his
privates dashed themselves headlong against it for the second time,
and the major, appearing again round the corner of the clock, asked his
audience innocently "if they would be good enough to tell him whether
anything had gone wrong?"

The fantastic absurdity of the exhibition, heightened by Major Milroy's
grave inquiry at the end of it, was so irresistibly ludicrous that
the visitors shouted with laughter; and even Miss Milroy, with all her
consideration for her father's sensitive pride in his clock, could not
restrain herself from joining in the merriment which the catastrophe of
the puppets had provoked. But there are limits even to the license of
laughter; and these limits were ere long so outrageously overstepped
by one of the l