Page:The Posthumous Papers of the Pickwick Club.djvu/473

389 THE PICKWICK CLUB. 389

Mr Pickwick yarned several times when he had arrived at the end of this little manuscript, carefully refolded, and replaced it in the ink- stand drawer, and then, with a countenance expressive of the utmost weariness, lighted his chamber candle, and went up stairs to bed.

He stopped at Mr. Dowler's door, according to custom, and knocked, to say, good night.

" Ah !" said Dowler, " going to bed ? — IwishI was. Dismal night Windy ; isn'<; it ?"


 * ' Very," said Mr. Pickwick. *' Good night."

« Good night.'*

Mr. Pickwick went to his bedchamber, and Mr. Dowler resumed his seat before the fire, in fulfilment of his rash promise to sit up till his wife came home.

There are few things more worrying than sitting up for somebody, especially if that somebody be at a party. You cannot help thinking how quickly the time passes with them, which drags so heavily with you ; and the more you think of this, the more your hopes of their speedy arrival decline. Clocks tick so loud, too, when you are sitting up alone, and you seem — at least we always do — as if you had got an under garment of cobwebs on. First, something tickles your right knee, and then the same sensation irritates your left. You have no sooner changed your position, than it comes again in the arms ; and when you have fidgeted your limbs into all sorts of queer shapes, you have a sudden relapse in the nose, which you rub as if to rub it oflf — as there is no doubt you would, if you could. Eyes, too, are mere per- sonal inconveniences, and the wick of one candle gets an inch and a half long, while you are snuffing the other. These, and various other little nervous annoyances, render sitting up for a length of time after every body else has gone to bed, any thing but a cheerful amusement.

This was just Mr. Dowler's opinion, as he sat before the fire, and felt honestly indignant with all the inhuman people at the party, who were keeping him up. He was not put into better humour either, by the reflection that he had taken it into his head, early in the evening, to think he had got an ache there, and so stopped at home. At length, after several droppings asleep, and fallings forward towards the bars, and catchings backward soon enough to prevent being branded in the face, Mr. Dowler made up his mind that he would just throw himself on the bed in the back-room and think — not sleep, of course.

" I'm a heavy sleeper," said Mr. Dowler, as he flung himself on the bed. ** I must keep awake ; — I suppose I shall hear a knock here. Yes. I thought so. I can hear the watchman. There he goes. Fainter now though. A little fainter. He's turning the corner. Ah ! " When Mr. Dowler arrived at this point, he turned the corner at which he had been so long hesitating, and fell fast asleep.

Just as the clock struck three, there were blown into the crescent a sedan-chair, with Mrs. Dowler inside, borne by one short fat chairman, and one long thin one, who had had much ado all the way to keep their bodies perpendicular, to say nothing of the chair; but on that high ground, and in the crescent, which the wind swept round and round as

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