Nor was this excellence attained without some
cost and trouble and great expenditure of voice, as the neighbours
were frequently reminded when the good lady of the house overlooked and
assisted in its being put to rights on cleaning days--which were usually
from Monday morning till Saturday night, both days inclusive.
Leaning against the door-post of this, his dwelling, the locksmith
stood early on the morning after he had met with the wounded man, gazing
disconsolately at a great wooden emblem of a key, painted in vivid
yellow to resemble gold, which dangled from the house-front, and swung
to and fro with a mournful creaking noise, as if complaining that it had
nothing to unlock. Sometimes, he looked over his shoulder into the shop,
which was so dark and dingy with numerous tokens of his trade, and so
blackened by the smoke of a little forge, near which his 'prentice
was at work, that it would have been difficult for one unused to such
espials to have distinguished anything but various tools of uncouth make
and shape, great bunches of rusty keys, fragments of iron, half-finished
locks, and such like things, which garnished the walls and hung in
clusters from the ceiling.
Pages:
48
49
50
51
52
53
54
55
56
57
58
59
60
61
62
63
64
65
66
67
68
69
70
71
72