ecause we are not like those clumsy-made truncheons in the land-world,
which cannot go without having a whole man to carry them about. We do
our own work for ourselves; and do it very well, though I say it who
should not."

"Then why have you a thong to your handle?" asked Tom.

"To hang ourselves up by, of course, when we are off duty."

Tom had got his answer, and had no more to say, till they came up to the
great iron door of the prison. And there the truncheon knocked twice,
with its own head.

A wicket in the door opened, and out looked a tremendous old brass
blunderbuss charged up to the muzzle with slugs, who was the porter; and
Tom started back a little at the sight of him.

"What case is this?" he asked in a deep voice, out of his broad bell
mouth.

"If you please, sir, it is no case; only a young gentleman from her
ladyship, who wants to see Grimes, the master-sweep."

"Grimes?" said the blunderbuss. And he pulled in his muzzle, perhaps to
look over his prison-lists.

"Grimes is up chimney No. 345," he said from inside. "So the young
gentleman had better go on to the roof."

Tom looked up at the enormous wall, which seemed at least ninety miles
high, and wondered how he should ever get up: but, when he hinted that
to the truncheon, it settled the matter in a moment. For it whisked
round, and gave him such a shove behind as sent him up to the roof in no
time, with his little dog under his arm.

And there he walked along the leads, till he met another truncheon, and
told him his errand.

"Very good," it said. "Come along: but it will be of no use. He is the
most unremorseful, hard-hearted, foul-mouthed fellow I have in charge;
and thinks about nothing but beer and pipes, which are not allowed here,
of course."

So they walked along over the leads, and very sooty they were, and Tom
thought the chimneys must want sweeping very much. But he was surprised
to see that the soot did not stick to his feet, or dirty them in the
least. Neither did the live coals, which were lying about in plenty,
burn him; for, being a water-baby, his radical humours were of a moist
and cold nature, as you may read at large in Lemnius, Cardan, Van
Helmont, and other gentlemen, who knew as much as they could, and no man
can know more.

And at last they came to chimney No. 345. Out of the top of it, his head
and shoulders just showing, stuck poor Mr. Grimes, so sooty, and
bleared, and ugly, that Tom could hardly bear to loo