upright, as if in water, until the chair stopped him.

'My friend, Mr. Idle,' said Goodchild, extremely anxious to
introduce a third person into the conversation.

'I am,' said the old man, without looking at him, 'at Mr. Idle's
service.'

'If you are an old inhabitant of this place,' Francis Goodchild
resumed.

'Yes.'

'Perhaps you can decide a point my friend and I were in doubt upon,
this morning. They hang condemned criminals at the Castle, I
believe?'

'_I_ believe so,' said the old man.

'Are their faces turned towards that noble prospect?'

'Your face is turned,' replied the old man, 'to the Castle wall.
When you are tied up, you see its stones expanding and contracting
violently, and a similar expansion and contraction seem to take
place in your own head and breast. Then, there is a rush of fire
and an earthquake, and the Castle springs into the air, and you
tumble down a precipice.'

His cravat appeared to trouble him. He put his hand to his throat,
and moved his neck from side to side. He was an old man of a