ent
surrounded by several of his own 'mourners.' Bertram moved as near as
he could to the captain, whom he perceived to be in conversation with
some person immediately in advance, and lurking from general view under
the overshadowing bulk of the noble captain's massy figure.

"_What's_ your name, do you say?" asked the captain, lowering his ear,
"Bilberry?"

"Dulberry, I say," replied the other angrily: "Samuel Dulberry, late
twist manufacturer in Manchester."

"Dulberry is it? Why, Dulberry, then: what, man! I'll not rob you of
it. Now, Dulberry, I'll tell you what: you're in luck; you've not got
such a d---d hulk of a body to take care of as I have. You'll do all
the better for a gimblet. So mind now, Dulberry: as soon as the door
opens, take your head in your hands and begin to bore with it. You
shall be the wedge: I'll be the mallet. Never you look behind: I'll
take care of all that. Mind your own duty; once bore a hole for me, and
my name's not le Harnois if I don't send you 'home.'"

Though Mr. Dulberry could not perhaps wholly approve of the captain's
rather authoritative tone, nor of the captain's figures of speech,
which, to a man who had read Blackstone, seemed a little too much to
confound the distinctions of 'things' and 'persons'--yet, as he saw the
benefits of such an arrangement, he made no objection, but submitted to
act in the humble relation of screw to a screw-driver--or, to keep to
the captain's image, submitted to be "driven home" as a nail by the
great hammer of Captain le Harnois.

He began immediately by breaking a weak phalanx of women, who sought to
re-unite in his rear; but they found that they must first of all
circumnavigate the great rock of Captain le Harnois; and, long before
that could be effected, so many of the Fleurs-de-lys' people pressed
after in the captain's wake that this confluence of the female
bisections never took place. In a moment after the doors of the court
opened; a rush took place; Bertram was carried in by the torrent; and
in half a minute found himself comfortably lodged in an elevated
corner. From this he overlooked the court, and he could perceive that
the captain had well performed his promise of driving Mr. Dulberry
home: the reformer was advanced to the very utmost verge of the
privileged space, and obliged to support himself against the pressure
behind by clasping a pillar: as the captain in turn clasped Mr.
Dulberry, and enfolded him, as one box in a 'nes