ourth, standing idle, saw all
at once the pupils of his eyes contract, and his lips set so ominously,
that the words were in his mouth, "Hold him fast!" when Guy, exerting
the full force of his arms, shook himself clear, and grasping a
brass-candlestick within his reach, struck the executioner straight
between the eyes. The effort of freeing himself to some extent broke the
force of the blow, or the great Baines dynasty might have ended there
and then; as it was, Buttons fell like a log, and, rolling once over on
his face, lay there bleeding and motionless.

While the assistants were too much astounded to detain him, Guy walked
out without a glance at his prostrate enemy; and going straight to the
head of the house, told him what had happened. The character of the
aggressor was so well known, that, when they found he was not seriously
hurt, they let Guy off easy with "two books of the _Iliad_ to write out
in Greek." Buttons kept the sick-room for ten days, and came out looking
more pasty than ever, with his pleasant propensities decidedly checked
for the time.

In his parish church at Birmingham, two tons of marble weighing him
down, the old button-maker sleeps with his father (to pluralize his
ancestors would be a grave historical error), and Joseph II. reigns in
his stead, exercising, I doubt not, over his factory-people the same
ingenuity of torture which in old times nearly drove the fags to
rebellion. He is a Demosthenes, they say, at vestries, and a Draco at
the Board of Guardians; but in the centre of his broad face, marring the
platitude of its smooth-shaven respectability, still burns angrily a
dark red scar--Guy's sign-manual--which he will carry to his grave.

The exultation of the lower school over this exploit was boundless.
Fifty energetic admirers contended for the honor of writing out the
punishment inflicted on the avenger; and one sentimentalist, just in
Herodotus, preserved the fatal candlestick as an inestimable relic,
wreathing its stem with laurel and myrtle, in imitation of the honors
paid by Athens to the sword that slew the Pisistratid.

CHAPTER II.

"My only books
Were woman's looks,
And folly all they taught me."

The Count bore his honors very calmly, though every week some fresh feat
of bodily strength or daring kept adding to his popularity. It was no
slight temptation to his vanity; for, as some one has said truly, no
successful adventurer in after-life eve