But as soon as the fire was extinguished, down came the kiln in a tumbled ruin, carted off to London, once more to be set up in ambitious edifices, to a true brickyard philosopher, little less transient than the kilns.
Sometimes, lading out his dough, Israel could not but bethink him of what seemed enigmatic in his fate.

He whom love of country made a hater of her foes--the foreigners among whom he now was thrown--he who, as soldier and sailor, had joined to kill, burn and destroy both them and theirs--here he was at last, serving that very people as a slave, better succeeding in making their bricks than firing their ships.

To think that he should be thus helping, with all his strength, to extend the walls of the Thebes of the oppressor, made him half mad.

Poor Israel! well-named--bondsman in the English Egypt.

But he drowned the thought by still more recklessly spattering with his ladle: "What signifies who we be, or where we are, or what we do ?" Slap-dash! "Kings as clowns are codgers--who ain't a nobody ?" Splash! "All is vanity and clay.".