"I'll go bail for the front gate, Johnny, if you'll be ready for the rear attack, supposing they've the cheek to try one. This engine works a double hose, you see, on the principle of a well-coil. Now, my fine fellows, what do you want here?" The blacksmith, though working against his will--for my father always paid him ready money--had prized one heavy gate off its hinges, and the other was swagging to fall with it. "We wants you, guv'nor, and your scurvy flag;" cried the leader of the mob, a chimney-sweep. "B'iler, b'iler; we wants the Tory b'iler!" cried a hundred dirty fellows, as the gates crashed in. "Well, and you shall have him," said my father, who was standing just outside the slow-house door, with the nozzle of the hose tucked under his arm, and a rod in his right hand to put the pressure on; "if you come a yard further, you shall taste the boiler. Only let blacksmith Grimes get out of the way. I don't wish to boil a respectable neighbour. And I don't want to boil you, unless you insist on it." Not only Grimes, but a great many others would have liked to get out of the way at this; but the bulk of the tumult behind shoved on, and the heads, that were fain to hang back, got jammed up in front against the smash, and then shot over. Father just waited, till the chimney-sweep, a termagant of the highest rank, was hurra-ing, and waving a soot-brush,--and then he let go hot candles at them. In a long white column, flew the scalding fluid, spreading, like a sheaf, when it met their faces, and coating every man of them with poisonous gray froth. No man could swear, for his mouth was bunged up; and no man could strike, for his arms were stuck to him, with a weight of deposit, like a stalactite. Good stearine it was, of the value of at least three halfpence a pound, in the unrefined state; and it went inside their shirts, and stung like hornets, and settled into every cracked place of the skin, and made a man tight in his linings. And to add to their grief, such a steam arose among them--not to mention something else beginning with same letters--that the slits of any eyes, that were left half open, were as useless as in a thick London fog. "There's a deal more to come," said my father calmly; "noble reformers, stand shoulder to shoulder; as one of your writers has beautifully said--the deeper we go, the more strength we get."