Chapter 70
Mr Dennis having despatched this piece of business without any personal
hurt or inconvenience, and having now retired into the tranquil
respectability of private life, resolved to solace himself with half an
hour or so of female society. With this amiable purpose in his mind,
he bent his steps towards the house where Dolly and Miss Haredale were
still confined, and whither Miss Miggs had also been removed by order of
Mr Simon Tappertit.
As he walked along the streets with his leather gloves clasped
behind him, and his face indicative of cheerful thought and pleasant
calculation, Mr Dennis might have been likened unto a farmer ruminating
among his crops, and enjoying by anticipation the bountiful gifts of
Providence. Look where he would, some heap of ruins afforded him rich
promise of a working off; the whole town appeared to have been ploughed
and sown, and nurtured by most genial weather; and a goodly harvest was
at hand.
Having taken up arms and resorted to deeds of violence, with the great
main object of preserving the Old Bailey in all its purity, and the
gallows in all its pristine usefulness and moral grandeur, it would
perhaps be going too far to assert that Mr Dennis had ever distinctly
contemplated and foreseen this happy state of things.
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