 at Tom, they could not have horrified each other half so much as
in their own bewildered persons.
    »Dear, dear!« cried Tom, »what have I done? I hoped it would be a pleasant
surprise, sir. I thought you would like to know.«
    But at that moment a loud knocking was heard at the hall door.
 

                                  Chapter XXI

 More American Experiences. Martin Takes a Partner, and Makes a Purchase. Some
Account of Eden, as It Appeared on Paper. Also of the British Lion. Also of the
  Kind of Sympathy Professed and Entertained by the Watertoast Association of
                              United Sympathisers.

The knocking at Mr. Pecksniff's door, though loud enough, bore no resemblance
whatever to the noise of an American railway train at full speed. It may be well
to begin the present chapter with this frank admission, lest the reader should
imagine that the sounds now deafening this history's ears have any connection
with the knocker on Mr. Pecksniff's door, or with the great amount of agitation
pretty equally divided between that worthy man and Mr. Pinch, of which its
strong performance was the cause.
    Mr. Pecksniff's house is more than a thousand leagues away; and again this
happy chronicle has Liberty and Moral Sensibility for its high companions. Again
it breathes the blessed air of Independence; again it contemplates with pious
awe that moral sense which renders unto Cæsar nothing that is his; again inhales
that sacred atmosphere which was the life of him - oh noble patriot, with many
followers! - who dreamed of Freedom in a slave's embrace, and waking sold her
offspring and his own in public markets.
    How the wheels clank and rattle, and the tram-road shakes, as the train
rushes on! And now the engine yells, as it were lashed and tortured like a
living labourer, and writhed in agony. A poor fancy; for steel and iron are of
infinitely greater account, in this commonwealth, than flesh and blood. If the
cunning work of man be urged beyond its power of endurance, it has within it the
elements of its own revenge; whereas the wretched mechanism of the Divine Hand
is dangerous with no such property, but may be tampered with, and crushed, and
broken, at the driver's pleasure. Look at that engine! It shall cost a man more
dollars in the way of penalty and fine, and satisfaction of the outraged law, to
deface in wantonness that senseless mass of metal, than to take the lives of
twenty human creatures! Thus the stars wink upon the bloody stripes;
