it was to wait in, in the winter-time, as Toby
Veck well knew. The wind came tearing round the corner--especially the
east wind--as if it had sallied forth, express, from the confines of the
earth, to have a blow at Toby. And oftentimes it seemed to come upon him
sooner than it had expected, for bouncing round the corner, and passing
Toby, it would suddenly wheel round again, as if it cried "Why, here he
is!"

Toby was curious about the Bells because there were points of
resemblance between them and him. They hung there in all weathers, with
the wind and rain driving in upon them; facing only the outsides of all
the houses; never getting any nearer to the blazing fires that gleamed
and shone upon the windows or came puffing out of the chimney tops; and
incapable of participating in any of the good things that were
constantly being handed through the street doors and iron railings to
prodigious cooks. Being but a simple man, he invested the Bells with a
strange and solemn character. They were so mysterious, often heard and
never seen; so high up, so far off, so full of such a deep, strong
melody, that he regarded them with a species of awe; and sometimes when
he looked up at the dark arched windows in the tower, he half expected
to be beckoned to by something which was not a Bell, and yet was what he
heard so often sounding in the Chimes. For all this Toby scouted with
indignation a certain flying rumor that the Chimes were haunted, as
implying the possibility of their being connected with any Evil thing.
In short, they were very often in his ears, and very often in his
thoughts, but always in his good opinion; and he very often got such a
crick in his neck by staring with his mouth wide open, at the steeple
where they hung, that he was fain to take an extra trot or two,
afterward, to cure it.

The very thing he was in the act of doing one cold day, when the last
drowsy sound of Twelve o'clock, just struck, was humming like a
melodious monster of a Bee, and not by any means a busy Bee, all through
the steeple?

"Dinner time, eh!" said Toby, trotting up and down before the church.
"Ah!"

Toby's nose was very red, and his eyelids were very red, and he winked
very much, and his shoulders were very near his ears, and his legs were
very stiff, and altogether he was evidently a long way upon the frosty
side of cool.

"Dinner time, eh!" repeated Toby, using his right hand muffler like an
infantine boxing-glove, and punis