Ha, ha, ha!" To hear him say all this with unimaginable energy, one might have thought him the angriest of mankind.

To see him at the very same time, looking at the bird now perched upon his thumb and softly smoothing its feathers with his forefinger, one might have thought him the gentlest.

To hear him laugh and see the broad good nature of his face then, one might have supposed that he had not a care in the world, or a dispute, or a dislike, but that his whole existence was a summer joke.
"No, no," he said, "no closing up of my paths by any Dedlock! Though I willingly confess," here he softened in a moment, "that Lady Dedlock is the most accomplished lady in the world, to whom I would do any homage that a plain gentleman, and no baronet with a head seven hundred years thick, may.

A man who joined his regiment at twenty and within a week challenged the most imperious and presumptuous coxcomb of a commanding officer that ever drew the breath of life through a tight waist--and got broke for it--is not the man to be walked over by all the Sir Lucifers, dead or alive, locked or unlocked.

Ha, ha, ha!" "Nor the man to allow his junior to be walked over either ?" said my guardian.
"Most assuredly not!" said Mr.Boythorn, clapping him on the shoulder with an air of protection that had something serious in it, though he laughed.