strength and comfort. This is most complimentary to the virtue of

Prince Bladud's tears, and strongly corroborative of the veracity of this

legend.'

Mr Pickwick yawned several times when he had arrived at the end of

this little manuscript, carefully refolded, and replaced it in the

inkstand drawer, and then, with a countenance expressive of the

utmost weariness, lighted his chamber candle, and went upstairs to

bed. He stopped at Mr Dowler's door, according to custom, and

knocked to say good-night.

Ah!' said Dowler, 'going to bed? I wish I was. Dismal night. Windy;

isn't 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 as if you had 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; 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 off - as there is no doubt you

would, if you could. Eyes, too, are mere personal 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 everybody else

has gone to bed, anything 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 throw himself on the

bed in the back room and think - not sleep, of course.

The Pickwick Papers