r people watched up in the lonely church steeples
by night to make them strike, and how the bells were rung
when people died, and whether those were different bells from
wedding-bells, or only sounded dismal in the fancies of the
living; and then the precocious small boy proceeds to give
the astonished clockmaker some useful information about King
Alfred's candles and curfew-bells.

As Smike and Nicholas tramp their long journey to Portsmouth
they hear the sheep-bells tinkling on the downs. To Tom Pinch
journeying Londonwards 'the brass work on the harness was a
complete orchestra of little bells.'

What a terror the bells are to Jonas Chuzzlewit just before
he starts on his evil journey! He hears

the ringers practising in a neighbouring church, and
the clashing of their bells was almost maddening. Curse
the clamouring bells! they seemed to know that he
was listening at the door, and to proclaim it in a
crowd of voices to all the town! Would they never be
still? They ceased at last, and then the silence was
so new and terrible that it seemed the prelude to some
dreadful noise.

The boom of the bell is associated with many of the villains
of the novels. Fagin hears it when under sentence of death.
Blackpool and Carker hear the accusing bells when in the midst
of planning their evil deeds.

We can read the characters of some by the way they ring a
bell. The important little Mr. Bailey, when he goes to see his
friend Poll Sweedlepipe (_M.C._) 'came in at the door with
a lunge, to get as much sound out of the bell as possible,'
while Bob Sawyer gives a pull as if he would bring it up by
the roots. Mr. Clennam pulls the rope with a hasty jerk,
and Mr. Watkins Tottle with a faltering jerk, while Tom Pinch
gives a gentle pull. And how angry Mr. Mantalini is with
Newman Noggs because he keeps him

'ringing at this confounded old cracked tea-kettle
of a bell, every tinkle of which is enough to throw
a strong man into convulsions, upon my life and
soul,--oh demmit.'

The introduction of electric bells has been a great trial to
those who used to vent their wrath on the wire-pulled article
or the earlier bell-rope, which used not infrequently to add
unnecessary fuel by coming incontinently down on the head of
the aggrieved one. What a pull the fierce gentleman must have
given whose acquaintance Mr. Pickwick made when he was going
to Bath! He had been kept waiting for hi