# Chapter 9 explained — Barnaby Rudge > Chapter companion for Barnaby Rudge by Charles Dickens. ## What happens Miss Miggs, the Vardens' maid, observes Simon Tappertit sneaking out at night after making a key to the workshop. She sabotages the lock with coal dust, forcing him to wake her for entry. After a comedic exchange, she lets him in and feigns fainting, securing his confidence. ## Themes in this chapter ### Manipulation and Exploitation Miggs manipulates Simon's situation to gain leverage, while Simon exploits her affections for his own ends. ### Social Injustice and Class The power dynamics between servant and master are evident, with Miggs using cunning to assert control in a constrained role. ## Character check-ins ### Miss Miggs Spies on Simon, sabotages the lock, and feigns fainting to gain his confidence. ### Simon Tappertit Sneaks out at night, returns to find the lock jammed, and pleads with Miggs for entry. ### Dolly Varden Mentioned as the object of Simon's affections, whom Miggs resents. ### Gabriel Varden The locksmith, whose workshop Simon has secretly made a key to. ## Key lines > Chroniclers are privileged to enter where they list, to come and go through keyholes, to ride upon the wind, to overcome, in their soarings up and down, all obstacles of distance, time, and place. Narrators can go anywhere, even through keyholes, and are not bound by space or time. _The narrator uses this to follow Miggs into her private chamber._ > Miss Miggs, having undone her mistress, as she phrased it (which means, assisted to undress her), and having seen her comfortably to bed in the back room on the first floor, withdrew to her own apartment, in the attic story. After helping her mistress undress and get into bed, Miggs went to her own attic room. _Shows the domestic routine and Miggs's position in the household._ > Why I wish I may only have a walking funeral, and never be buried decent with a mourning-coach and feathers, if the boy hasn't been and made a key for his own self! I swear, the boy has made a key for himself! _Miggs discovers Simon's secret key-making._ > Having filled this instrument with a quantity of small coal-dust from the forge, she approached the door, and dropping on one knee before it, dexterously blew into the keyhole as much of these fine ashes as the lock would hold. She filled the keyhole with coal dust to jam the lock. _Miggs sabotages the lock to trap Simon._ > I knew I should quench her, said Sim, rather embarrassed by this circumstance. Of course I was certain it would come to this, but there was nothing else to be done—if I hadn't eyed her over, she wouldn't have come down. Simon knew she would faint, but he had to use his charm to get her to open the door. _Simon's manipulation of Miggs's feelings._ ## Links - HTML: https://www.betterreads.online/discover/barnaby_rudge_se/chapters/chapter-9 - Book: https://www.betterreads.online/discover/barnaby_rudge_se - All chapters: https://www.betterreads.online/discover/barnaby_rudge_se/chapters