course of things he must inevitably overtake and run
them down; and he had perfect faith -- not often
tested -- in his being able to carry anything that man
could lift.

  Thus, even when he came out of his nook to warm
himself on a wet day, Toby trotted. Making, with
his leaky shoes, a crooked line of slushy footprints in
the mire; and blowing on his chilly hands and rubbing
them against each other, poorly defended from the
searching cold by threadbare mufflers of grey
worsted, with a private apartment only for the
thumb, and a common room or tap for the rest of
the fingers; Toby, with his knees bent and his cane
beneath his arm, still trotted. Falling out into the
road to look up at the belfry when the Chimes re-
sounded, Toby trotted still.

  He made this last excursion several times a day,
for they were company to him; and when he heard
their voices, he had an interest in glancing at their
lodging-place, and thinking how they were moved, and
what hammers beat upon them. Perhaps he was the
more curious about these Bells, because there were
points of resemblance between themselves and him
They hung there, in all weathers, with the wind and
rain driving in upon them; facing only the outsides
of all those houses; never getting any nearer to the
blazing fires that gleamed and shone upon the win-
dows, or came puffing out of the chimney tops; and
incapable of participation in any of the good things
that were constantly being handed, through the street
doors and the area railings, to prodigious cooks.
Faces came and went at many windows: sometimes
pretty faces, youthful faces, pleasant faces: some-
times the reverse: but Toby knew no more (though
he often speculated on these trifles, standing idle in
the streets) whence they came, or where they went, or
whether, when the lips moved, one kind word was said
of him in all the year, than did the Chimes themselves.

  Toby was not a casuist -- that he knew of, at least --
and I don't mean to say that when he began to take
to the Bells, and to knit up his first rough acquaint-
ance with them into something of a closer and more
delicate woof, he passed through these considerations
one by one, or held any formal review or great field-
day in his thoughts. But what I mean to say, and
do say is, that as the functions of Toby's body, his
digestive organs for example, did of their own cun-
ning, and by a great many operations of which he
was altogether ignorant, and the knowledge of which
would have astonished him very much, arrive at a cer-
tain end; so his mental faculties, without his privity
or concurrence, set all these wheels and springs in
motion, with a thousand others, when they worked to
bring about his liking for the Bells.

  And though I had said his love, I would not have
recalled the word, though it would scarcely have ex-
pressed his complicated feeling. For, being but a
simple man, he invested them 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 had heard so often
sounding in the Chimes. For all this. Toby scouted
with indignation a certain flying rumour 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, after-
wards, 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
punishing his chest for being cold. 'Ah-h-h-hl'

  He took a silent trot, after that, for a minute or