A specimen of his speech might run thus:--"What, how now, my masters ?" (to himself)--"Here's a stir--here's a coil."-- (Then to Wayland)--"You are a loitering knave, and shall have no entrance."-- (Again to himself)--"Here's a throng--here's a thrusting .-- I shall ne'er get through with it--Here's a--humph--ha."-- (To Wayland)--"Back from the gate, or I'll break the pate of thee."-- (Once more to himself)--"Here's a--no--I shall never get through it." "Stand still," whispered Flibbertigibbet into Wayland's ear, "I know where the shoe pinches, and will tame him in an instant." He dropped down from the horse, and skipping up to the porter, plucked him by the tail of the bearskin, so as to induce him to decline his huge head, and whispered something in his ear.

Not at the command of the lord of some Eastern talisman did ever Afrite change his horrid frown into a look of smooth submission more suddenly than the gigantic porter of Kenilworth relaxed the terrors of his looks at the instant Flibbertigibbet's whisper reached his ears.

He flung his club upon the ground, and caught up Dickie Sludge, raising him to such a distance from the earth as might have proved perilous had he chanced to let him slip.
"It is even so," he said, with a thundering sound of exultation--"it is even so, my little dandieprat.

But who the devil could teach it thee ?" "Do not thou care about that," said Flibbertigibbet--"but--" he looked at Wayland and the lady, and then sunk what he had to say in a whisper, which needed not be a loud one, as the giant held him for his convenience close to his ear.

The porter then gave Dickie a warm caress, and set him on the ground with the same care which a careful housewife uses in replacing a cracked china cup upon her mantelpiece, calling out at the same time to Wayland and the lady, "In with you--in with you! and take heed how you come too late another day when I chance to be porter." "Ay, ay, in with you," added Flibbertigibbet; "I must stay a short space with mine honest Philistine, my Goliath of Gath here; but I will be with you anon, and at the bottom of all your secrets, were they as deep and dark as the Castle dungeon." "I do believe thou wouldst," said Wayland; "but I trust the secret will be soon out of my keeping, and then I shall care the less whether thou or any one knows it." They now crossed the entrance tower, which obtained the name of the Gallery-tower, from the following circumstance: The whole bridge, extending from the entrance to another tower on the opposite side of the lake, called Mortimer's Tower, was so disposed as to make a spacious tilt-yard, about one hundred and thirty yards in length, and ten in breadth, strewed with the finest sand, and defended on either side by strong and high palisades.