oor open, and looking triumphantly
round at Mr. Pickwick, 'there's a room!'

Mr. Pickwick's face, however, betokened such a very trifling portion of
satisfaction at the appearance of his lodging, that Mr. Roker looked,
for a reciprocity of feeling, into the countenance of Samuel Weller,
who, until now, had observed a dignified silence. 'There's a room, young
man,' observed Mr. Roker.

'I see it,' replied Sam, with a placid nod of the head.

'You wouldn't think to find such a room as this in the Farringdon Hotel,
would you?' said Mr. Roker, with a complacent smile.

To this Mr. Weller replied with an easy and unstudied closing of one
eye; which might be considered to mean, either that he would have
thought it, or that he would not have thought it, or that he had
never thought anything at all about it, as the observer's imagination
suggested. Having executed this feat, and reopened his eye, Mr. Weller
proceeded to inquire which was the individual bedstead that Mr. Roker
had so flatteringly described as an out-and-outer to sleep in.

'That's it,' replied Mr. Roker, pointing to a very rusty one in a
corner. 'It would make any one go to sleep, that bedstead would, whether
they wanted to or not.'

'I should think,' said Sam, eyeing the piece of furniture in question
with a look of excessive disgust--'I should think poppies was nothing to
it.'

'Nothing at all,' said Mr. Roker.

'And I s'pose,' said Sam, with a sidelong glance at his master, as if to
see whether there were any symptoms of his determination being shaken
by what passed, 'I s'pose the other gen'l'men as sleeps here ARE
gen'l'men.'

'Nothing but it,' said Mr. Roker. 'One of 'em takes his twelve pints of
ale a day, and never leaves off smoking even at his meals.'

'He must be a first-rater,' said Sam.

'A1,' replied Mr. Roker.

Nothing daunted, even by this intelligence, Mr. Pickwick smilingly
announced his determination to test the powers of the narcotic bedstead
for that night; and Mr. Roker, after informing him that he could retire
to rest at whatever hour he thought proper, without any further notice
or formality, walked off, leaving him standing with Sam in the gallery.

It was getting dark; that is to say, a few gas jets were kindled in this
place which was never light, by way of compliment to the evening, which
had set in outside. As it was rather warm, some of the tenants of the
numerous little rooms which opened into the gallery on either h