public functionaries, but more particularly beneath the

stateliness and gravity of a beadle: who (as is well known)

should be the sternest and most inflexible among them all.

Whatever were Mr. Bumble's intentions, however (and no doubt they

were of the best): it unfortunately happened, as has been twice

before remarked, that the table was a round one; consequently Mr.

Bumble, moving his chair by little and little, soon began to

diminish the distance between himself and the matron; and,