usting itself on people's notice a bit the
more for having been outdone by louder sounds--tink, tink, tink, tink,
tink.

It was a perfect embodiment of the still small voice, free from
all cold, hoarseness, huskiness, or unhealthiness of any kind;
foot-passengers slackened their pace, and were disposed to linger near
it; neighbours who had got up splenetic that morning, felt good-humour
stealing on them as they heard it, and by degrees became quite
sprightly; mothers danced their babies to its ringing; still the same
magical tink, tink, tink, came gaily from the workshop of the Golden
Key.

Who but the locksmith could have made such music! A gleam of sun shining
through the unsashed window, and chequering the dark workshop with a
broad patch of light, fell full upon him, as though attracted by his
sunny heart. There he stood working at his anvil, his face all radiant
with exercise and gladness, his sleeves turned up, his wig pushed off
his shining forehead--the easiest, freest, happiest man in all the
world. Beside him sat a sleek cat, purring and winking in the light, and
falling every now and then into an idle doze, as from excess of comfort.
Toby looked on from a tall bench hard by; one beaming smile, from his
broad nut-brown face down to the slack-baked buckles in his shoes. The
very locks that hung around had something jovial in their rust, and
seemed like gouty gentlemen of hearty natures, disposed to joke on their
infirmities. There was nothing surly or severe in the whole scene.
It seemed impossible that any one of the innumerable keys could fit a
churlish strong-box or a prison-door. Cellars of beer and wine, rooms
where there were fires, books, gossip, and cheering laughter--these
were their proper sphere of action. Places of distrust and cruelty, and
restraint, they would have left quadruple-locked for ever.

Tink, tink, tink. The locksmith paused at last, and wiped his brow. The
silence roused the cat, who, jumping softly down, crept to the door,
and watched with tiger eyes a bird-cage in an opposite window. Gabriel
lifted Toby to his mouth, and took a hearty draught.

Then, as he stood upright, with his head flung back, and his portly
chest thrown out, you would have seen that Gabriel's lower man was
clothed in military gear. Glancing at the wall beyond, there might
have been espied, hanging on their several pegs, a cap and feather,
broadsword, sash, and coat of scarlet; which any man learned in such
m