expression, under an old cocked-hat like a three-cornered

spittoon, and over a great muffler for the chin and throat, which

descended nearly to the wearer’s knees. When he stopped for

drink, he moved this muffler with his left hand, only while he

poured his liquor in with his right; as soon as that was done, he

muffled again.

“No, Jerry, no!” said the messenger, harping on one theme as

he rode. “It wouldn’t do for you, Jerry. Jerry, you honest

tradesman, it wouldn’t suit your line of business! Recalled! Bust

me if I don’t think he’d been a drinking!”

His message perplexed his mind to that degree that he was fain,

several times, to take off his hat to scratch his head. Except on the

crown, which was raggedly bald, he had stiff, black hair, standing

jaggedly all over it, and growing down hill almost to his broad,

blunt nose. It was so like smith’s work, so much more like the top

Charles Dickens ElecBook Classics

of a strongly spiked wall than a head of hair, that the best of

players at leap-frog might have declined him, as the most

dangerous man in the world to go over.

While he trotted back with the message he was to deliver to the

night watchman in his box at the door of Tellson’s Bank, by

Temple Bar, who was to deliver it to greater authorities within, the

shadows of the night took such shapes to him as arose out of the