 that this hope was gone, and felt that he was riding to his death.
 

                                  Chapter LXX

Mr. Dennis having despatched this piece of business without any personal hurt or
inconvenience, and having now retired into the tranquil respectability of
private life, resolved to solace himself with half an hour or so of female
society. With this amiable purpose in his mind, he bent his steps towards the
house where Dolly and Miss Haredale were still confined, and whither Miss Miggs
had also been removed by order of Mr. Simon Tappertit.
    As he walked along the streets with his leather gloves clasped behind him,
and his face indicative of cheerful thought and pleasant calculation, Mr. Dennis
might have been likened unto a farmer ruminating among his crops, and enjoying
by anticipation the bountiful gifts of Providence. Look where he would, some
heap of ruins afforded him rich promise of a working off; the whole town
appeared to have been ploughed and sown, and nurtured by most genial weather;
and a goodly harvest was at hand.
    Having taken up arms and resorted to deeds of violence, with the great main
object of preserving the Old Bailey in all its purity, and the gallows in all
its pristine usefulness and moral grandeur, it would perhaps be going too far to
assert that Mr. Dennis had ever distinctly contemplated and foreseen this happy
state of things. He rather looked upon it as one of those beautiful
dispensations which are inscrutably brought about for the behoof and advantage
of good men. He felt, as it were, personally referred to, in this prosperous
ripening for the gibbet; and had never considered himself so much the pet and
favourite child of Destiny, or loved that lady so well or with such a calm and
virtuous reliance, in all his life.
    As to being taken up, himself, for a rioter, and punished with the rest, Mr.
Dennis dismissed that possibility from his thoughts as an idle chimera; arguing
that the line of conduct he had adopted at Newgate, and the service he had
rendered that day, would be more than a set-off against any evidence which might
identify him as a member of the crowd. That any charge of companionship which
might be made against him by those who were themselves in danger, would
certainly go for nought. And that if any trivial indiscretion on his part should
unluckily come out, the uncommon usefulness of his office, at present, and the
great demand for the exercise of its functions, would certainly cause it to be
winked at, and passed over. In a word, he had played his cards throughout, with
great care; had
