y;
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.

'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 long hesitating,
and fell fast asleep.

Just as the clock struck three, there was 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 ad