Seriously speaking, did you ever see a countenance so expressive of the most hopeless extreme of heavy dulness, or behold a form so strangely put together?
He is no great speaker: but when he _does_ address the House, the effect is absolutely irresistible.
The small gentleman with the sharp nose, who has just saluted him, is a Member of Parliament, an ex-Alderman, and a sort of amateur fireman.

He, and the celebrated fireman's dog, were observed to be remarkably active at the conflagration of the two Houses of Parliament--they both ran up and down, and in and out, getting under people's feet, and into everybody's way, fully impressed with the belief that they were doing a great deal of good, and barking tremendously.

The dog went quietly back to his kennel with the engine, but the gentleman kept up such an incessant noise for some weeks after the occurrence, that he became a positive nuisance.

As no more parliamentary fires have occurred, however, and as he has consequently had no more opportunities of writing to the newspapers to relate how, by way of preserving pictures he cut them out of their frames, and performed other great national services, he has gradually relapsed into his old state of calmness.
That female in black--not the one whom the Lord's-Day-Bill Baronet has just chucked under the chin; the shorter of the two--is 'Jane:' the Hebe of Bellamy's.

Jane is as great a character as Nicholas, in her way.