But that's impossible! I
wonder whether there's any madman alive, who would marry Miggs!'
This was such a vast speculation that he fell into a doze again, and
slept until the fire was quite burnt out. At last he roused himself; and
having double-locked the street-door according to custom, and put the
key in his pocket, went off to bed.
He had not left the room in darkness many minutes, when the head again
appeared, and Sim Tappertit entered, bearing in his hand a little lamp.
'What the devil business has he to stop up so late!' muttered Sim,
passing into the workshop, and setting it down upon the forge. 'Here's
half the night gone already. There's only one good that has ever come to
me, out of this cursed old rusty mechanical trade, and that's this piece
of ironmongery, upon my soul!'
As he spoke, he drew from the right hand, or rather right leg pocket of
his smalls, a clumsy large-sized key, which he inserted cautiously in
the lock his master had secured, and softly opened the door. That done,
he replaced his piece of secret workmanship in his pocket; and leaving
the lamp burning, and closing the door carefully and without noise,
stole out into the street--as little suspected by the locksmith in his
sound deep sleep, as by Barnaby himself in his phantom-haunted dreams.
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