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The air was heavy and oppressive; the rooms were dark; a deep gloom filled up every chink and corner. Upon the hearthstone, like a creature of ill omen, sat the aged clerk, with his eyes fixed on some withered branches in the stove. He rose and looked at her. 'So there you are, Mr Chuff, said Jonas carelessly, as he dusted his boots; 'still in the land of the living, eh?
There's lots of work for good fools in the world; and there's lots of good fools to do it, if only the knaves would let 'em alone. Well, all went proper enough with the Whites till Solomon Chuff came to Vitifer Mine as foreman, and he got to know 'em, and Jenny liked the man because he put her in mind of her dead father.
Set up in the neighborhood of any bottle-habited man, it will invariably lure him into an approach. Near it was an ice-tinkling device, used for the same purposes of stratagem. "Poor Virgil!" said Miss Chuff with a sigh. "I'm afraid he has had a grievous ordeal. We must run carefully now, so as not to give him away."
Chuff began calling out that the best remedy for white paint was turpentine. "Coma along, Peckaby, and open the door," said Jan, rising. "She'll catch an illness if she stops here in her wet clothes, and I shall have a month's work, attending on her. Come!" "Well, sir, to oblige you, I will," returned the man. "But let me ever catch her snivelling after them saints again, that's all!
They hastened back to the wall, scaled it with the rope ladder and stared in dismay. The car had gone. They could see it far down the road, guarded by a group of Pan-Antis. A cordon of the enemy had been thrown completely round the Home and escape was impossible. Worse still, the treachery of Miss Chuff must have been discovered, and they trembled to think what retaliation the Bishop might devise.
When they took the air again they circled over the temple at a safe height. They could see the crowd gathered densely round the little white columns. Virgil shut off the motor for a moment, and even at that distance they could hear the sound of cheers. Bishop Chuff sat sourly in his office and sighed for more worlds to canker.
Patches of dead-white, looking not unlike paint, covered it about on all sides, especially behind. The shawl had caught some white, too, and the green leather gloves looked, inside, as though they had had a coat of whitewash put on them. Her beautiful gownd! laid by so long! what on earth had ruined it like that? Chuff, the blacksmith, gave a great grin from his window.
"Yes," said the middy, as they returned to their resting-place, to begin making a hearty meal, "things do look a bit more rosy, but you mustn't be too chuff over it. I'll bet sixpence, if you like, that the tackle in those tubs is as salt as brine." "I'm afraid so," said Aleck, "and all the outside of the flour mouldy." "Very likely," said the middy.
Through it all, against illness, heat, confusion of mind, one master impetus prevailed with me, to keep the shipping going, to maintain one motif at least, whatever else arose or ceased, the chuff of the spades, the squeaking and shriek of the barrows, the pluppa, pluppa, pluppa, as the men came trotting along the swinging high planks, and then at last, the dollop, dollop, as the stuff shot into the hold.
He started to say "Uneasy lies the head that wears a frown," which was an aphorism of his own he thought highly of, but Theodolinda checked him. She knew that her father detested puns. It was perhaps his only virtue. "Bishop Chuff," said Quimbleton, "perhaps you are not aware of the strength and tenacity of the sentiment we represent.
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