inquiry was that, between eleven and twelve o'clock, a free pardon to
Barnaby Rudge was made out and signed, and Gabriel Varden had the
grateful task of bringing him home in triumph with an enthusiastic mob.

"I needn't say," observed the locksmith, when his house in Clerkenwell
was reached at last, and he and Barnaby were safe within, "that, except
among ourselves, _I_ didn't want to make a triumph of it. But directly
we got into the street, we were known, and the hub-bub began. Of the
two, and after experience of both, I think I'd rather be taken out of my
house by a crowd of enemies than escorted home by a mob of friends!"

At last the crowd dispersed. And Barnaby stretched himself on the ground
beside his mother's couch, and fell into a deep sleep.

* * * * *




Bleak House

"Bleak House," a story with a purpose, like most of Dickens's
works, was published when the author was forty years old. The
object of the story was to ventilate the monstrous injustice
wrought by delays in the old Court of Chancery, which defeated
all the purposes of a court of justice. Many of the
characters, who, though famous, are not essential to the
development of the story, were drawn from real life.
Turveydrop was suggested by George IV., and Inspector Bucket
was a friend of the author in the Metropolitan Police Force.