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Chapter VII
Fred,' said Mr Swiveller, 'remember the once popular melody of
'
Begone dull care; fan the sinking flame of hilarity with the wing of
friendship; and pass the rosy wine.'
Mr Richard Swiveller's apartments were in the neighbourhood of
Drury Lane, and in addition to this convenience of situation had the
advantage of being over a tobacconist's shop, so that he was enabled
to procure a refreshing sneeze at any time by merely stepping out
upon the staircase, and was saved the trouble and expense of
maintaining a snuff-box. It was in these apartments that Mr Swiveller
made use of the expressions above recorded for the consolation and
encouragement of his desponding friend; and it may not be
uninteresting or improper to remark that even these brief observations
partook in a double sense of the figurative and poetical character of
Mr Swiveller's mind, as the rosy wine was in fact represented by one
glass of cold gin-and-water, which was replenished as occasion
required from a bottle and jug upon the table, and was passed from
one to another, in a scarcity of tumblers which, as Mr Swiveller's was
a bachelor's establishment, may be acknowledged without a blush. By
a like pleasant fiction his single chamber was always mentioned in a
plural number. In its disengaged times, the tobacconist had
announced it in his window as 'apartments' for a single gentleman,
and Mr Swiveller, following up the hint, never failed to speak of it as
his rooms, his lodgings, or his chambers, conveying to his hearers a
notion of indefinite space, and leaving their imaginations to wander
through long suites of lofty halls, at pleasure.
In this flight of fancy, Mr Swiveller was assisted by a deceptive piece of
furniture, in reality a bedstead, but in semblance a bookcase, which
occupied a prominent situation in his chamber and seemed to defy
suspicion and challenge inquiry. There is no doubt that by day Mr
Swiveller firmly believed this secret convenience to be a bookcase and
nothing more; that he closed his eyes to the bed, resolutely denied the
existence of the blankets, and spurned the bolster from his thoughts.
No word of its real use, no hint of its nightly service, no allusion to its
peculiar properties, had ever passed between him and his most
intimate friends. Implicit faith in the deception was the first article of
his creed. To be the friend of Swiveller you must reject all
circumstantial evidence, all reason, observation, and experience, and
repose a blind belief in the bookcase. It was his pet weakness, and he
cherished it.
'
Fred!' said Mr Swiveller, finding that his former adjuration had been
productive of no effect. 'Pass the rosy.'
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