The locksmith's swinging key creaked next door to the bank; across the way, crouching, mendicant-like, in the shadow of a great importing-house, was the mud laboratory of the mender of broken combs.

Emmanuel went in search of them, while a locksmith opened the door of the Maison Claes.

The name, Isaac Bickerstaff, which has in sound the curious propriety so characteristic of Dickens's names, was, like so many of the names in Dickens, suggested by a name on a sign-board, the name of a locksmith in Long Acre.

Then Sir Tristram summoned the locksmith of that castle; and the smith came and burst open the chests; and lo!

From this inn, Gabriel Varden, stout-hearted old locksmith of Clerkenwell, jogged steadily home on a chaise, half sleeping and half waking, on a certain rough evening in March.

"What's here to do?" said the old locksmith.

The disconsolate locksmith had, therefore, to deliver himself of his story of the night's experiences to his daughter, buxom, bewitching Dolly, the very pink and pattern of good looks, and the despair of the youth of the neighbourhood.

"Why, what's that?" said the locksmith suddenly.

" "Some thief or ruffian," said the locksmith.

A look of terror was on the woman's face, and before her stood a man, of sinister appearance, whom the locksmith had passed on the road from Chigwell the previous night.

The man fled, but the locksmith was after him and would have held him but for the widow, who clutched his arms.

"The other way!" said the locksmith.

The locksmith started, and there was Grip, a large raven, Barnaby's close companion, perched on the top of a chair.

The locksmith said "Good-night," and went his way home, disturbed in thought.

Can she, who has always borne so fair a name, be guilty of such crimes in secret?" said the locksmith, musing.

Hugh had brought, by force, old Gabriel Varden to pick the lock of the great door, but this the sturdy locksmith resolutely refused to do.

And the crowd left the locksmith, to gather fuel, for an entrance was to be forced by fire.

The locksmith had carried petitions and memorials to the fountain-head with his own hands.

"I needn't say," observed the locksmith, when his house in Clerkenwell was reached at last, and he and Barnaby were safe within, "that, except among ourselves, I didn't want to make a triumph of it.

In due time the compromising situation arrives, and we find that it not only requires a room with three doors, but that a locksmith has to be specially called in to provide two of these doors with peculiar locks, so that, when once shut, they cannot be opened from inside except with a key!

DOLLY VARDEN, daughter of Gabriel Varden, locksmith.

SEE BUTLER, PIERCE, ed. BUTLER, WARREN H. The little locksmith.

"Wait till I get a locksmith here!"

However, it seemed that we had them safe enough, for there was no dropping out of the windows at that height; so we sent the sergeant to get a locksmith to pick the lock or force the door, while we kept on ringing the bell.

For, in a moment, as the girl passed near, the tinker called out, "Well, Crescenz, how is your friend the locksmith?