| 196 | 197 | 198 | 199 | 200 |
| 1 | 133 | 265 | 398 | 530 |
|
withered faces carved upon the beams, and staring down into the
street. These had very little winking windows, and low-arched doors,
and, in some of the narrower ways, quite overhung the pavement. The
streets were very clean, very sunny, very empty, and very dull. A few
idle men lounged about the two inns, and the empty market-place,
and the tradesmen's doors, and some old people were dozing in chairs
outside an alms-house wall; but scarcely any passengers who seemed
bent on going anywhere, or to have any object in view, went by; and if
perchance some straggler did, his footsteps echoed on the hot bright
pavement for minutes afterwards. Nothing seemed to be going on but
the clocks, and they had such drowzy faces, such heavy lazy hands,
and such cracked voices that they surely must have been too slow.
The very dogs were all asleep, and the flies, drunk with moist sugar in
the grocer's shop, forgot their wings and briskness, and baked to
death in dusty corners of the window.
Rumbling along with most unwonted noise, the caravan stopped at
last at the place of exhibition, where Nell dismounted amidst an
admiring group of children, who evidently supposed her to be an
important item of the curiosities, and were fully impressed with the
belief that her grandfather was a cunning device in wax. The chests
were taken out with all convenient despatch, and taken in to be
unlocked by Mrs Jarley, who, attended by George and another man in
velveteen shorts and a drab hat ornamented with turnpike tickets,
were waiting to dispose their contents (consisting of red festoons and
other ornamental devices in upholstery work) to the best advantage in
the decoration of the room.
They all got to work without loss of time, and very busy they were. As
the stupendous collection were yet concealed by cloths, lest the
envious dust should injure their complexions, Nell bestirred herself to
assist in the embellishment of the room, in which her grandfather also
was of great service. The two men being well used to it, did a great
deal in a short time; and Mrs Jarley served out the tin tacks from a
linen pocket like a toll-collector's which she wore for the purpose, and
encouraged her assistants to renewed exertion.
While they were thus employed, a tallish gentleman with a hook nose
and black hair, dressed in a military surtout very short and tight in
the sleeves, and which had once been frogged and braided all over,
but was now sadly shorn of its garniture and quite threadbare -
dressed too in ancient grey pantaloons fitting tight to the leg, and a
pair of pumps in the winter of their existence - looked in at the door
and smiled affably. Mrs Jarley's back being then towards him, the
military gentleman shook his forefinger as a sign that her myrmidons
were not to apprise her of his presence, and stealing up close behind
her, tapped her on the neck, and cried playfully 'Boh!'
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