showman stationed before his window the stage on which Punch satirizes
the laws and moralities of the world, "kills the beadle and defies the
devil."



CHAPTER X.

KENELM turned from the sight of Punch and Punch's friend the cur, as
his servant, entering, said a person from the country, who would not
give his name, asked to see him.

Thinking it might be some message from his father, Kenelm ordered the
stranger to be admitted, and in another minute there entered a young
man of handsome countenance and powerful frame, in whom, after a
surprised stare, Kenelm recognized Tom Bowles. Difficult indeed would
have been that recognition to an unobservant beholder: no trace was
left of the sullen bully or the village farrier; the expression of the
face was mild and intelligent,--more bashful than hardy; the brute
strength of the form had lost its former clumsiness, the simple dress
was that of a gentleman,--to use an expressive idiom, the whole man
was wonderfully "toned down."

"I am afraid, sir, I am taking a liberty," said Tom, rather nervously,
twiddling his hat between his fingers.

"I should be a greater friend to liberty than I am if it were always
taken in the same way," said Kenelm, with a touch of his saturnine
humour; but then yielding at once to the warmer impulse of his nature,
he grasped his old antagonist's hand and exclaimed, "My dear Tom, you