stones and boards
hinged to facilitate examination at any period.

But all this, with the necessary cleaning, whitewashing, painting, and
papering, ran away with money. Then came Rosa's purchases, which, to her
amazement, amounted to one hundred and ninety pounds, and not a carpet,
curtain, or bed amongst the lot. Then there was the carriage home from
the auction-room, an expense one avoids by buying at a shop, and
the broker claimed his shilling in the pound. This, however, Staines
refused. The man came and blustered. Rosa, who was there, trembled.
Then, for the first time, she saw her husband's brow lower; he seemed
transfigured, and looked terrible. "You scoundrel," said he, "you set
another villain like yourself to bid against you, and you betrayed the
innocent lady that employed you. I could indict you and your confederate
for a conspiracy. I take the goods out of respect for my wife's credit,
but you shall gain nothing by swindling her. Be off, you heartless
miscreant, or I'll"--

"I'll take the law, if you do."

"Take it, then! I'll give you something to howl for;" and he seized him
with a grasp so tremendous that the fellow cried out in dismay, "Oh!
don't hit me, sir; pray don't."

On this abject appeal, Staines tore the door open with his left hand,
and spun the broker out into the passage with his right. Two movements
of this angry Hercules, and the man was literally whirled out of sight
with a rapidity and swiftness almost ludicrous; it was like a trick in
a pantomime. A clatter on the stairs betrayed that he had gone down the
first few steps in a wholesale and irregular manner, though he had just
managed to keep his feet.

As for Staines, he stood there still lowering like thunder, and his
eyes like hot coals; but his wife threw her tender arms around him, and
begged him consolingly not to mind.

She was trembling like an aspen.

"Dear me," said Christopher, with a ludicrous change to marked
politeness and respect, "I forgot YOU, in my righteous indignation."
Next he became uxorious. "Did they frighten her, a duck? Sit on my
knee, darling, and pull my hair, for not being more considerate--there!
there!"

This was followed by the whole absurd soothing process, as practised by
manly husbands upon quivering and somewhat hysterical wives, and ended
with a formal apology. "You must not think that I am passionate; on the
contrary, I am always practising self-government. My maxim is, Animum
rege qui nisi