room but could not
accomplish it, dart suddenly forward, and falling on the small servant
give her some hard blows with her clenched hand. The victim cried, but
in a subdued manner as if she feared to raise her voice, and Miss
Sally, comforting herself with a pinch of snuff, ascended the stairs,
just as Richard had safely reached the office.

CHAPTER 37

The single gentleman among his other peculiarities--and he had a very
plentiful stock, of which he every day furnished some new
specimen--took a most extraordinary and remarkable interest in the
exhibition of Punch. If the sound of a Punch's voice, at ever so
remote a distance, reached Bevis Marks, the single gentleman, though in
bed and asleep, would start up, and, hurrying on his clothes, make for
the spot with all speed, and presently return at the head of a long
procession of idlers, having in the midst the theatre and its
proprietors. Straightway, the stage would be set up in front of Mr
Brass's house; the single gentleman would establish himself at the
first floor window; and the entertainment would proceed, with all its
exciting accompaniments of fife and drum and shout, to the excessive
consternation of all sober votaries of business in that silent
thoroughfare. It might have been expected that when the play was done,
both players and audience would have dispersed; but the epilogue was as
bad as the play, for no sooner was the Devil dead, than the manager of
the puppets and his partner were summoned by the single gentleman to
his chamber, where they were regaled with strong waters from his
private store, and where they held with him long conversations, the
purport of which no human being could fathom. But the secret of these
discussions was of little importance. It was sufficient to know that
while they were proceeding, the concourse without still lingered round
the house; that boys beat upon the drum with their fists, and imitated
Punch with their tender voices; that the office-window was rendered
opaque by flattened noses, and the key-hole of the street-door luminous
with eyes; that every time the single gentleman or either of his guests
was seen at the upper window, or so much as the end of one of their
noses was visible, there was a great shout of execration from the
excluded mob, who remained howling and yelling, and refusing
consolation, until the exhibitors were delivered up to them to be
attended elsewhere. It was sufficient, in short, to