and-Tough! jump up, and show him how strong you are. Just lift him
on your toe, like you did me. (Here Zack pulled Mat unceremoniously out
of his chair.) Come along, Blyth! Get opposite to him--give him hold
of your hand--stand on the toe part of his right foot--don't wriggle
about--stiffen your hand and aim, and--there!--what do you say to
his muscular development now?" concluded Zack, with an air of supreme
triumph, as Mat slowly lifted from the ground the foot on which Mr.
Blyth was standing, and, steadying himself on his left leg, raised the
astonished painter with his right nearly two feet high in the air.

Any spectator observing the performance of this feat of strength, and
looking only at Mat, might well have thought it impossible that any
human being could present a more comical aspect than he now exhibited,
with his black skull-cap pushed a little on one side, and showing an
inch or so of his bald head, with his grimly-grinning face empurpled by
the violent physical exertion of the moment, and with his thick heavy
figure ridiculously perched on one leg. Mr. Blyth, however, was beyond
all comparison the more laughable object of the two, as he soared
nervously into the air on Mat's foot, tottering infirmly in the strong
grasp that supported him, till he seemed to be trembling all over, from
the tips of his crisp black hair to the flying tails of his frock-coat.
As for the expression of his round rosy face, with the bright eyes
fixed in a startled stare, and the plump cheeks crumpled up by an uneasy
smile, it was so exquisitely absurd, as young Thorpe saw it over his
fellow-lodger's black skull-cap, that he roared again with laughter.
"Oh! look up at him!" cried Zack, falling back in his chair. "Look at
his face, for heaven's sake, before you put him down!"

But Mat was not to be moved by this appeal. All the attention his eyes
could spare during those few moments, was devoted, not to Mr. Blyth's
face but to Mr. Blyth's watch-chain. There hung the bright little key
of the painter's bureau, dangling jauntily to and fro over his
waistcoat-pocket. As the right foot of the Sampson of Kirk Street
hoisted him up slowly, the key swung temptingly backwards and forwards
between them. "Come take me! come take me!" it seemed to say, as Mat's
eyes fixed greedily on it every time it dangled towards him.

"Wonderful! wonderful!" cried Mr. Blyth, looking excessively relieved
when he found himself safely set down on the floor a