as been TAKEN IN!
Other men may be occasionally taken in, and no one mourns; perhaps they
deserve it! they are not especially benevolent, or they set up to
be specially wise. But to take in that lamb! And it was not only the
Mayor's heart that was wounded, but his pride, his self-esteem, his
sense of dignity, were terribly humiliated. For as we know, though all
the world considered Mr. Hartopp the very man born to be taken in, and
therefore combined to protect him, yet in his secret soul Mr. Hartopp
considered that no man less needed such protection; that he was never
taken in, unless he meant to be so. Thus the cruelty and ingratitude of
the base action under which his crest was so fallen jarred on his whole
system. Nay, more, he could not but feel that the event would long
affect his personal comfort and independence; he would be more than ever
under the affectionate tyranny of Mr. Williams, more than ever be an
object of universal surveillance and espionage. There would be one
thought paramount throughout Gatesboro'. "The Mayor, God bless him! has
been taken in: this must not occur again, or Gatesboro' is dishonoured,
and Virtue indeed a name!" Mr. Hartopp felt not only mortified but
subjugated,--he who had hitherto been the soft subjugator of the
hardest. He felt not only subjugated, but indignant at the consciousness
of being so. He was too meekly convinced of Heaven's unerring justice
not to feel assured that the man who had taken him in would come to a
tragic end. He would not have hung that man with his own hands: he was
too mild for vengeance. But if he had seen that man hanging he would
have said piously, "Fitting retribution," and passed on his way soothed
and comforted. Taken in!--taken in at last!--he, Josiah Hartopp, taken
in by a fellow with one eye!

CHAPTER II.

The Mayor is so protected that he cannot help himself.

A commotion without,--a kind of howl, a kind of hoot. Mr. Williams, the
warehousemen, the tanners, Mike Callaghan, share between them the howl
and the hoot. The Mayor started: is it possible! His door is burst open,
and, scattering all who sought to hold him back,--scattering them to the
right and left from his massive torso in rushed the man who had taken
in the Mayor,--the fellow with one eye, and with that fellow, shaggy and
travel-soiled, the other dog!

"What have you done with the charge I intrusted to you? My child! my
child! where is she?"

Waife's face was wild with