Page:The Posthumous Papers of the Pickwick Club.djvu/116

72 72 POSTHUMOUS PAPERS OF

I can well imagine these gentlemen to say, ' If I were not Dumkins I would be Luffey ; if I were hot Podder I would be Struggles.' (Enthu- siasm.) But gentlemen of Muggleton is it in cricket alone that your fellow-townsmen stand pre-eminent? Have you never heard of Dum- kins and determination? Have you never been taught to associate Podder with property? (Great applause). Have you never, when struggling for your rights, your liberties, and your privileges, been reduced, if only for an instant, to misgiving and despair ? And when you have been thus depressed, has not the name of Dumkins laid afresh within your breast, the fire which had just gone out ; and has not a word from that man, lighted it again as brightly as if it had never expired ? (Great cheering.) Gentlemen, I beg you to surround with a rich halo of enthusiastic cheering, the united names of * Dumkins and Podder.'"

Here the little man ceased, and here the company commenced a raising of voices, and thumping of tables, which lasted with little inter- mission during the remainder of the evening. Other toasts were drunk. Mr. Luffey and Mr. Struggles, Mr. Pickwick and Mr. Jingle, were, each in his turn, the subject of unqualified eulogium ; and each in due course returned thanks for the honour.

Enthusiastic as we are in the noble cause to which we have devoted ourselves, we should have felt a sensation of pride which we cannot express, and a consciousness of having done something to merit immortality of which we are now deprived, could we have laid the faintest outline of these addresses before our ardent readers. Mr. Snodgrass, as usual, took a great mass of notes, which would no doubt have afforded most useful and valuable information, had not the burn- ing eloquence of the words or the feverish influence of the wine made that gentleman's hand so extremely unsteady, as to render his writing nearly unintelligible, and his style wholly so. By dint of patient investigation, we have been enabled to trace some characters bearing a faint resemblance to the names of the speakers ; and we can also discern an entry of a song (supposed to have been sung by Mr. Jingle,) in which the words " bowl" " sparkling" " ruby" " bright," and " wine" are frequently repeated at short intervals. We fancy too, that we can discern at the very end of the notes, some indistinct reference to " broiled bones ;" and then the words " cold" " without" occur : but as any hypothesis we could found upon them must necessarily rest upon mere conjecture, we are not disposed to indulge in any of the specu- lations to which they may give rise.

We will therefore return to Mr. Tupman ; merely adding that within some few minutes before twelve o'clock that night, the convocation of worthies of Dingley Dell and Muggleton, were heard to sing with great feeling and emphasis, the beautiful and pathetic national air, of

We won 't go home 'till morning, AVe won't go home 'till morning, We won't go home 'till morning, 'Till day-light doth appear.