"Not wus? not wus? Oh,—oh!"
"How is it possible? He committed a number of murders, and if you can find me anything worse he could have done, I shall indeed be very much surprised."
"Gentlemen, he might have polished me off. That's what he might have done, for he has actually had me hold of by the nose. Oh, conwulsions! if I had only then thought that there was a chance of his polishing off, as he used to call it, a parochial authority, I should have—I should have—"
"What, Mr. Beadle?"
"Flewed through the window, sir, that's what I should have done, and told the world at large what had happened."
"Well, certainly, that would have been something."
"Everything," said the other gentleman, in a tone of voice that showed how much he was inclined to enjoy a joke at the expense of the beadle. "It would have been everything. But how plain you can hear the roaring of the flames now, even in this church, with the door shut."
"You can, indeed," said the other. "Ah, there dashes past another engine. Come, Mr. Beadle, the sooner we get on this tower the better."
"In a minute, gentlemen; but now as you is here arter the blessed old church has been shut up all night, I jest ask you to say if it has the orrid smell as it used to have, which offended the holy nose of the bishop when he came to confirm the people."
"I smell nothing."