Page:The Posthumous Papers of the Pickwick Club.djvu/390

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814 POSTHUMOUS PAPERS OF

Snodgrass.
 * Keep yourself up for an inst'ant — for only one instant," bawled Mr.

" Yes, do ; let me implore you — for my sake," roared Mr. Winkle, deeply affected. The adjuration was rather unnecessary ; the probability being, that if Mr. Pickwick had declined to keep himself up for any- body else's sake, it would have occurred to him that he might as well do so, for his own.

" Do you feel the bottom there, old fellow ?" said Wardle.

"Yes, certainly," replied Mr. Pickwick, wringing the water from his head and face, and gasping for breath. " 1 fell upon my back. I couldn't get on my feet at first."

The clay upon so much of Mr. Pickwick's coat as was yet visible, bore testimony to the accuracy of this statement ; and as the fears of the spectators were still farther relieved by the fat boy's suddenly recollecting that the water was nowhere more than five feet deep, prodigies of valour were performed to get him out. After a vast quan- tity of splashing, and cracking, and struggling, Mr. Pickwick was at length fairly extricated from his unpleasant position, and once more stood on dry land.

" Oh, he'll catch his death of cold," said Emily.

" Dear old thing I" said Arabella. " Let me wrap this shawl round you, Mr. Pickwick."

" Ah, that's the best thing you can do," said Wardle ; " and when you've got it on, run home as fast as your legs can carry you, and jump into bed directly."

A dozen shawls were offered on the instant ; and three or four of the thickest having been selected, Mr. Pickwick was wrapped up, and started off, under the guidance of Mr. Weller ; presenting the singular phenomenon of an elderly gentleman dripping wet, and without a hat, with his arms bound down to his sides, skimming over the ground with- out any clearly defined purpose, at the rate of six good English miles an hour.

But Mr. Pickwick cared not for appearances in such an extreme case, and urged on by Sam Weller, he kept at the very top of his speed until he reached the door of Manor Farm, where Mr. Tupman had arrived some five minutes before, and had frightened the old lady into palpita- tions of the heart, by impressing her with the unalterable conviction that the kitchen chimney was on fire — a calamity which always pre- sented itself in the most glowing colours to the old lady's mind, when anybody about her evinced the smallest agitation.

Mr. Pickwick paused not an instant until he was snug in bed. Sam Weller lighted a blazing fire in the room, and took up his dinner ; a bowl of punch was carried up afterwards, and a grand carouse held in honour of his safety. Old Wardle would not hear of his rising, so they made the bed the chair, and Mr. Pickwick presided. A second and a third bowl were ordered in ; and when Mr. Pickwick awoke next morn- ing, there was not a symptom of rheumatism about him, which proves, as Mr. Bob Sawyer very justly observed, that there is nothing like hot punch in such cases, and that if ever hot punch did fail to act as a pre-

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