mouth wide open, she would be seen to sit
very stiff and upright in her chair; then to nod a little way forward,
and stop with a jerk; then to nod a little farther forward, and stop
with another jerk; then to recover herself; then to come forward
again--lower--lower--lower--by very slow degrees, until, just as it
seemed impossible that she could preserve her balance for another
instant, and the locksmith was about to call out in an agony, to save
her from dashing down upon her forehead and fracturing her skull, then
all of a sudden and without the smallest notice, she would come upright
and rigid again with her eyes open, and in her countenance an expression
of defiance, sleepy but yet most obstinate, which plainly said, 'I've
never once closed 'em since I looked at you last, and I'll take my oath
of it!'

At length, after the clock had struck two, there was a sound at the
street door, as if somebody had fallen against the knocker by accident.
Miss Miggs immediately jumping up and clapping her hands, cried with a
drowsy mingling of the sacred and profane, 'Ally Looyer, mim! there's
Simmuns's knock!'

'Who's there?' said Gabriel.

'Me!' cried the well-known voice of Mr Tappertit. Gabriel opened the
door, and gave him admission.

He did not cut a very insinuating figure, for a man of his stature
suffers in a crowd; and having been active in yesterday morning's work,
his dress was literally crushed from head to foot: his hat being beaten
out of all shape, and his shoes trodden down at heel like slippers. His
coat fluttered in strips about him, the buckles were torn away both from
his knees and feet, half his neckerchief was gone, and the bosom of
his shirt was rent to tatters. Yet notwithstanding all these personal
disadvantages; despite his being very weak from heat and fatigue; and
so begrimed with mud and dust that he might have been in a case, for
anything of the real texture (either of his skin or apparel) that the
eye could discern; he stalked haughtily into the parlour, and throwing
himself into a chair, and endeavouring to thrust his hands into the
pockets of his small-clothes, which were turned inside out and displayed
upon his legs, like tassels, surveyed the household with a gloomy
dignity.

'Simon,' said the locksmith gravely, 'how comes it that you return home
at this time of night, and in this condition? Give me an assurance that
you have not been among the rioters, and I am satisfied.'

'Sir,' replie