stranger.

'You rendered us a very important service this morning, sir,' said he,
'will you allow us to offer a slight mark of our gratitude by begging
the favour of your company at dinner?'

'Great pleasure--not presume to dictate, but broiled fowl and
mushrooms--capital thing! What time?'

'Let me see,' replied Mr. Pickwick, referring to his watch, 'it is now
nearly three. Shall we say five?'

'Suit me excellently,' said the stranger, 'five precisely--till
then--care of yourselves;' and lifting the pinched-up hat a few inches
from his head, and carelessly replacing it very much on one side, the
stranger, with half the brown paper parcel sticking out of his pocket,
walked briskly up the yard, and turned into the High Street.

'Evidently a traveller in many countries, and a close observer of men
and things,' said Mr. Pickwick.

'I should like to see his poem,' said Mr. Snodgrass.

'I should like to have seen that dog,' said Mr. Winkle.

Mr. Tupman said nothing; but he thought of Donna Christina, the stomach
pump, and the fountain; and his eyes filled with tears.

A private sitting-room having been engaged, bedrooms inspected, and
dinner ordered, the party walked out to view the city and adjoining
neighbourhood.

We do not find, from a careful perusal of Mr. Pickwick's notes of
the four towns, Stroud, Rochester, Chatham, and Brompton, that his
impressions of their appearance differ in any material point from those
of other travellers who have gone over the same ground. His general
description is easily abridged.

'The principal productions of these towns,' says Mr. Pickwick, 'appear
to be soldiers, sailors, Jews, chalk, shrimps, officers, and dockyard
men. The commodities chiefly exposed for sale in the public streets are
marine stores, hard-bake, apples, flat-fish, and oysters. The streets
present a lively and animated appearance, occasioned chiefly by the
conviviality of the military. It is truly delightful to a philanthropic
mind to see these gallant men staggering along under the influence of
an overflow both of animal and ardent spirits; more especially when we
remember that the following them about, and jesting with them, affords a
cheap and innocent amusement for the boy population. Nothing,' adds Mr.
Pickwick, 'can exceed their good-humour. It was but the day before my
arrival that one of them had been most grossly insulted in the house
of a publican. The barmaid had positively refused to draw him