muscle was detached. 'Yes, I have destroyed a genuine antique; I may be

in for thousands!' And then there sprung up in his bosom a sort of angry

hope. 'Let me see,' he thought. 'Julia's got rid of--, there's nothing

to connect me with that beast Forsyth; the men were all drunk, and

(what's better) they've been all discharged. O, come, I think this is

another case of moral courage! I'll deny all knowledge of the thing.'

A moment more, and he stood again before the Hercules, his lips sternly

compressed, the coal-axe and the meat-cleaver under his arm. The next,

he had fallen upon the packing-case. This had been already seriously

undermined by the operations of Gideon; a few well-directed blows, and

it already quaked and gaped; yet a few more, and it fell about Morris in

a shower of boards followed by an avalanche of straw.

And now the leather-merchant could behold the nature of his task: and at

the first sight his spirit quailed. It was, indeed, no more ambitious a

task for De Lesseps, with all his men and horses, to attack the hills

of Panama, than for a single, slim young gentleman, with no previous

experience of labour in a quarry, to measure himself against that

bloated monster on his pedestal. And yet the pair were well encountered:

on the one side, bulk--on the other, genuine heroic fire.

'Down you shall come, you great big, ugly brute!' cried Morris aloud,

with something of that passion which swept the Parisian mob against the

walls of the Bastille. 'Down you shall come, this night. I'll have none

of you in my lobby.'

The Wrong Box