Miss Miggs immediately jumping up and clapping her hands, cried with a
drowsy mingling of the sacred and profane, 'Ally Looyer, mim! there's
Simmuns's knock!'
'Who's there?' said Gabriel.
'Me!' cried the well-known voice of Mr Tappertit. Gabriel opened the
door, and gave him admission.
He did not cut a very insinuating figure, for a man of his stature
suffers in a crowd; and having been active in yesterday morning's work,
his dress was literally crushed from head to foot: his hat being beaten
out of all shape, and his shoes trodden down at heel like slippers. His
coat fluttered in strips about him, the buckles were torn away both from
his knees and feet, half his neckerchief was gone, and the bosom of
his shirt was rent to tatters. Yet notwithstanding all these personal
disadvantages; despite his being very weak from heat and fatigue; and
so begrimed with mud and dust that he might have been in a case, for
anything of the real texture (either of his skin or apparel) that the
eye could discern; he stalked haughtily into the parlour, and throwing
himself into a chair, and endeavouring to thrust his hands into the
pockets of his small-clothes, which were turned inside out and displayed
upon his legs, like tassels, surveyed the household with a gloomy
dignity.
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