Perhaps his imperturbable character was never
more strikingly developed, for he preserved his usual equable smile
notwithstanding that his body was dangling in a most uncomfortable
position, all loose and limp and shapeless, while his long peaked
cap, unequally balanced against his exceedingly slight legs,
threatened every instant to bring him toppling down.
In part scattered upon the ground at the feet of the two men, and
in part jumbled together in a long flat box, were the other persons
of the Drama. The hero's wife and one child, the hobby-horse, the
doctor, the foreign gentleman who not being familiar with the
language is unable in the representation to express his ideas
otherwise than by the utterance of the word 'Shallabalah' three
distinct times, the radical neighbour who will by no means admit
that a tin bell is an organ, the executioner, and the devil, were
all here. Their owners had evidently come to that spot to make some
needful repairs in the stage arrangements, for one of them was
engaged in binding together a small gallows with thread, while the
other was intent upon fixing a new black wig, with the aid of a
small hammer and some tacks, upon the head of the radical
neighbour, who had been beaten bald.
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