This done, he repaired
to the door, in all his profuseness, and seated himself on a block of
wood just outside, where as if suddenly becoming conscious of the
absence of something very necessary to his personal appearance, he
doffed his coat, rolled up his shirt-sleeves, and what, readers, do
you suppose he commenced doing?--Getting up the dignity! With nothing
less than a pound of chalk before him, he commenced polishing up a
steel chain that might on an emergency have served to chain up a very
large bull-dog; but the Squire adapted it to the more fashionable use
of adorning himself, and making safe his ponderous pinchbeck
watch. Belhash now puffed, and blowed, and swore, and sweated, and
piled on the chalk, and rubbed and tugged criss-crass his knee, until,
with the motion and fritting, he had well nigh covered his cloth with
the white substance, from the knee downward. Getting it to the dignity
point of brightness he invited me back into his forum, which served
the double purpose of kitchen and law-shop. Here he again smothered
himself in an extra coat of judicial homespun, and solicited my
assistance in securing the bandanna tight about his neck.
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