with the greatest possible complacency
and satisfaction.

Sim, as he was called in the locksmith's family, or Mr Simon Tappertit,
as he called himself, and required all men to style him out of doors,
on holidays, and Sundays out,--was an old-fashioned, thin-faced,
sleek-haired, sharp-nosed, small-eyed little fellow, very little more
than five feet high, and thoroughly convinced in his own mind that he
was above the middle size; rather tall, in fact, than otherwise. Of his
figure, which was well enough formed, though somewhat of the leanest,
he entertained the highest admiration; and with his legs, which, in
knee-breeches, were perfect curiosities of littleness, he was enraptured
to a degree amounting to enthusiasm. He also had some majestic, shadowy
ideas, which had never been quite fathomed by his intimate friends,
concerning the power of his eye. Indeed he had been known to go so far
as to boast that he could utterly quell and subdue the haughtiest beauty
by a simple process, which he termed 'eyeing her over;' but it must
be added, that neither of this faculty, nor of the power he claimed
to have, through the same gift, of vanquishing and heaving down dumb
animals, even in a rabid state, had he ever furnished evidence which
could be deemed quite satisfactory and conclusive.

It may be inferred from these premises, that in the small body of Mr
Tappertit there was locked up an ambitious and aspiring soul. As
certain liquors, confined in casks too cramped in their dimensions, will
ferment, and fret, and chafe in their imprisonment, so the spiritual
essence or soul of Mr Tappertit would sometimes fume within that
precious cask, his body, until, with great foam and froth and splutter,
it would force a vent, and carry all before it. It was his custom to
remark, in reference to any one of these occasions, that his soul had
got into his head; and in this novel kind of intoxication many scrapes
and mishaps befell him, which he had frequently concealed with no small
difficulty from his worthy master.

Sim Tappertit, among the other fancies upon which his before-mentioned
soul was for ever feasting and regaling itself (and which fancies,
like the liver of Prometheus, grew as they were fed upon), had a mighty
notion of his order; and had been heard by the servant-maid openly
expressing his regret that the 'prentices no longer carried clubs
wherewith to mace the citizens: that was his strong expression. He was
likewise reporte