The String of Pearls (1850), p. 665

all the crowd go in first, thinking that, as he was a man in office, the parish could not afford to lose him, in case anything serious should happen.
"Well, gentlemen," he cried, "what is it?"
"Nothing," said everybody.
"Then I will soon let nothing see that I, a churchwarden, am not to be fright-

{Figure}

ened with impunity—that is to say, when I say frightened, I don't exactly mean that, but astonished, I mean. Come, come—if any one be here, I call upon them to surrender in the king's name!"
A deep groan was the only response to this valorous speech; and the moment the churchwarden heard it, he bolted out of the church, and ran right across the way into a shop opposite.