Page:The Posthumous Papers of the Pickwick Club.djvu/459

377 THE PICKWICK CLUB. 377

fering", and who had the water from the King's Bath hottled at one hundred and three degrees, and sent by waggon to his bed-room in town, where he bathed, sneezed, and same day recovered. Very re- markable !"

Mr. Pickwick acknowledged the compliment which the supposition implied, but had the self-denial to repudiate it, notwithstanding ; and taking advantage of a moment's silence on the part of the M. C, begged to introduce his friends, Mr. Tupman, Mr. Winkle, and Mr. Snod- grass — an introduction which of course overwhelmed the M. C. with delight and honour.

" Bantam," said Mr. Dowler, ** Mr. Pickwick and his friends are strangers. They must put their names down. Where's the book ?"

" The register of the distinguished visiters in Ba — ath will be at the Pump Room this morning at two o'clock," replied the M. C. " Will you guide our friends to that splendid building, and enable me to procure their autographs ?"

" I will," rejoined Dowler. '* This is a long call. It's time to go ; I shall be here again in an hour. Come."

" This is a ball night," said the M. C, again taking Mr. Pickwick's hand, as he rose to go. " The ball-nights in Ba — ath are moments snatched from Paradise ; rendered bewitching by music, beauty, ele- gance, fashion, etiquette, and — and — above all, by the absence of trades- people, who are quite inconsistent with Paradise, and who have an anal- gamation of themselves at the Guildhall every fortnight, which is, to say the least, remarkable. Good bye, good bye !" and protesting all the way down stairs that he was most satisfied, and most delighted, and most overpowered, and most flattered, Angelo Cyrus Bantam, Esquire, M.C., stepped into a very elegant chariot that waited at the door, and rattled off.

At the appointed hour, Mr Pickwick and his friends, escorted by Dowler, repaired to the Assembly Rooms, and wrote their names down in the book— an instance of condescension at which Angelo Bantam was even more overpowered than before. Tickets of admission to that evening's assembly were to have been prepared for the whole party, but as they were not ready, Mr. Pickwick undertook, despite all the protes- tations to the contrary of Angelo Bantam, to send Sam for them at four o'clock in the afternoon, to the M. C.'s house in Queen Square. Having taken a short walk through the city, and arrived at the unani- mous conclusion that Park Street was very much like the perpendicular streets a man sees in a dream, which he cannot get up for the life of him, they returned to the White Hart, and dispatched Sam on the errand to which his master had pledged him.

Sam Weller put on his hat in a very easy and graceful manner, and thrusting his hands in his waistcoat pockets, walked with great delibe- ration to Queen Square, whistling as he went along, several of the most popular airs of the day, as arranged with entirely new movements for that noble instrument the organ, either mouth or barrel. Arriving at the number in Queen Square to which he had been directed, he left off whistling, and gave a cheerful knock which was instantaneously an-