"Now, John," said my father, as he took his arm, to confirm his courage (which required it), and led him down the red-tiled passage to the boiling-house; "you have had a great many good laughs at my little steam-engine, haven't you? Very well, we'll try it on the 'Great unwashed;' if there happens to be a bit of fire left. My men are all away, the same as yours--or else these fellows would not come to sack us. I gave them the quarter-day to vote, the same as you did with yours; and mine are gone the right colour to a man, I do believe. But I happened to say, 'leave a little steam on;' and I can get up a great deal in ten minutes, and the blackguards won't be here for twenty. They've got three blue houses yet to wreck, and my double-gates will keep them out, at least five minutes." "I see, I see, what you mean to do. What a glorious fellow you are, Bubbly! I'll go half the waste of phleg." "Then go and see that all the bolts are right, while I get up steam, and have the double hose ready." These two gallant, and sturdy, boilers very soon had the front and back gates barred and bolted, and strengthened with struts against the styles; so that all the men who could get at them must take at least five minutes to get through them; and meanwhile the furnace of the little engine was beginning to roar, and the steam to puff. "Capital! I call this first-rate stoking;" exclaimed my father, as he stopped to breathe. "Now you understand the hose, John? It is only three-inch pipe, and therefore as handy as a walking-stick. You put your nozzle upon that trestle, commanding the back doors, while I keep ready for the time they have broken the front gate down. We have got a big vat of hot stuff to draw from; but I don't think they'll want half of it." "Bubbly, I don't seem to understand it," said Mr. Windsor, who was slow-headed, and losing his presence of mind, perhaps (although he had got his coat off) from working so hard while he was fat, and with terrible Liberal screeches already arising in the air, above the rattle of the gates; "suppose, my dear friend, that we killed some fellow!" "No hope of that," said my father, being now in a rancorous, and determined frame; "I am afraid that the temperature won't be above 160°, if so much; and it cools in passing through the air too fast. It will only make their eyes sharp, and their faces clean, as they should be on a holiday. No white feather, John Windsor, now! Ah, they've fetched the blacksmith, as I knew they would. Think of your wife and children, John, and of the British Constitution. Things must be come to a very pretty pass, if a man mayn't syringe a born jackass! Especially when the jackass kicks his gate in." "In for a penny, then, in for a pound," his brother boiler answered, with his courage up; "whatever you order shall be done, friend Bubbly. This vat shall run away, before I do."