The third gentleman now stepped forth. A mighty man at cutting and drying, he
was; a government officer; in his way (and in most other people's too), a
professed pugilist; always in training, always with a system to force down the
general throat like a bolus, always to be heard of at the bar of his little Public-
office, ready to fight all England. To continue in fistic phraseology, he had a
genius for coming up to the scratch, wherever and whatever it was, and proving
himself an ugly customer. He would go in and damage any subject whatever
with his right, follow up with his left, stop, exchange, counter, bore his opponent
(he always fought All England) to the ropes, and fall upon him neatly. He was
certain to knock the wind out of common sense, and render that unlucky
adversary deaf to the call of time. And he had it in charge from high authority to
bring about the great public-office Millennium, when Commissioners should
reign upon earth.
(from Hard Times by Charles Dickens)