Sketches by Boz - Penn State University

Sketches by Bozof soot, at the door of which the beadle knocks with pudgy little man, in black, with a thick gold watchchainof considerable length, terminating in two largeconsiderable gravity for half-an-hour. No attention beingpaid to these manual applications, and the turncockhaving turned on the water, the engine turns off bustle; at no time more so, than when he is hurrying toseals and a key. He is an attorney, and generally in aamidst the shouts of the boys; it pulls up once more at some parochial meeting, with his gloves crumpled up inthe work-house, and the beadle ‘pulls up’ the unfortunatehouseholder next day, for the amount of his legal to the churchwardens and overseers, we exclude themone hand, and a large red book under the other arm. Asreward. We never saw a parish engine at a regular fire altogether, because all we know of them is, that theybut once. It came up in gallant style—three miles and a are usually respectable tradesmen, who wear hats withhalf an hour, at least; there was a capital supply of brims inclined to flatness, and who occasionally testifywater, and it was first on the spot. Bang went the in gilt letters on a blue ground, in some conspicuouspumps—the people cheered—the beadle perspired profusely;but it was unfortunately discovered, just as they having being enlarged and beautified, or an organ re-part of the church, to the important fact of a gallerywere going to put the fire out, that nobody understood built.the process by which the engine was filled with water; The master of the workhouse is not, in our parish—and that eighteen boys, and a man, had exhausted themselvesin pumping for twenty minutes, without produc-the better part of whose existence has passed away,nor is he usually in any other—one of that class of mening the slightest effect!and who drag out the remainder in some inferior situation,with just enough thought of the past, to feel de-The personages next in importance to the beadle, arethe master of the workhouse and the parish schoolmaster.The vestry-clerk, as everybody knows, is a short, unable to guess precisely to our own satisfaction whatgraded by, and discontented with the present. We are6