and ardour of youth. Mr. Winkle himself, inspired by the
occasion, was on the wall in a moment, merely pausing to request Sam to
be careful of his master.

'I'll take care on him, sir,' replied Sam. 'Leave him to me.'

'Where is he? What's he doing, Sam?' inquired Mr. Winkle.

'Bless his old gaiters,' rejoined Sam, looking out at the garden door.
'He's a-keepin' guard in the lane vith that 'ere dark lantern, like a
amiable Guy Fawkes! I never see such a fine creetur in my days. Blessed
if I don't think his heart must ha' been born five-and-twenty year arter
his body, at least!'

Mr. Winkle stayed not to hear the encomium upon his friend. He had
dropped from the wall; thrown himself at Arabella's feet; and by this
time was pleading the sincerity of his passion with an eloquence worthy
even of Mr. Pickwick himself.

While these things were going on in the open air, an elderly gentleman
of scientific attainments was seated in his library, two or three houses
off, writing a philosophical treatise, and ever and anon moistening his
clay and his labours with a glass of claret from a venerable-looking
bottle which stood by his side. In the agonies of composition, the
elderly gentleman looked sometimes at the carpet, sometimes at the
ceiling, and sometimes at the wall; and when neither carpet, ceiling,
nor wall afforded the requisite degree of inspiration, he looked out of
the window.

In one of these pauses of invention, the scientific gentleman was
gazing abstractedly on the thick darkness outside, when he was very much
surprised by observing a most brilliant light glide through the air, at
a short distance above the ground, and almost instantaneously vanish.
After a short time the phenomenon was repeated, not once or twice, but
several times; at last the scientific gentleman, laying down his pen,
began to consider to what natural causes these appearances were to be
assigned.

They were not meteors; they were too low. They were not glow-worms; they
were too high. They were not will-o'-the-wisps; they were not fireflies;
they were not fireworks. What could they be? Some extraordinary and
wonderful phenomenon of nature, which no philosopher had ever seen
before; something which it had been reserved for him alone to discover,
and which he should immortalise his name by chronicling for the benefit
of posterity. Full of this idea, the scientific gentleman seized his
pen again, and committed to paper sundry notes of these un