there is no saying on oath whether the other rope might have been used to this day. Seeing, therefore, how matters stood, Master Strangulator pushed in, with an elbowing manner, and began begging pardon of Tony for the part he was about to perform, who forgave him very readily, requesting him moreover to shake hands, and by Gog and Magog, such a shake was never shaked since the Shakers became a sect! At the first grapple of their fingers, the Strangulator pulled away his hand with a jerk, as if a bear’s palm had been palmed upon him instead of a human paw. Then, after making a frightful face, he gave a mighty great spring or vault upwards, a deal higher than the gallows, when, on coming down, he alighted with his legs a-straddle upon the beam, where he kept posturing for some five minutes; now rowing with his arms and legs, like a fish, now hanging with his head downwards, first by one leg and then by the other, then by one hand, and then again by his chin; you never saw a rope-dancer or tumbler of them all, at Bartlemy’s or Astley’s, more nimble. Then coming down to the stage with a bound, he threw three summersets forward, and then three backwards, as quick as thought. Anon, after standing for a minute in the first position, he fell a-dancing with all his might and main, and as fast as he could lift his feet, like a bear upon a hotted floor. Never was such a spring danced round about the gallows-tree; Gilderoy was a fool to him. You may guess how the Lord Mayor and Sheriffs, and the Ordinary and Extraordinary, stared at such a caper, till their eyes grew as big as owls’; and still more when they saw Tony, after making a round O of his mouth, fall to bouncing and bounding like another Oscar Byrne! Shade of Holbein, what a Dance of Death! Only think of Jack Ketch and the condemned dancing face to face on the drop, now poussetting, now setting to each other, now allemanding, now waltzing, and then, Father of Vestris, what a tableau! Tony figuring, opera-fashion, on one leg, with Cheshire poising on tip-toe on the calf of the other! As for his whim, it was jerked out of the box at the first frisk, and had enough to do, you may be sure, to scuttle out of the way of the skipping and hopping; as it was, the poor reptile got more kicks than ha’pence.