me facetiousness, and
related with much glee an agreeable anecdote, about the removal of a
tumour on some gentleman's head, which he illustrated by means of an
oyster-knife and a half-quartern loaf, to the great edification of
the assembled company. Then the whole train went to church, where Mr.
Benjamin Allen fell fast asleep; while Mr. Bob Sawyer abstracted his
thoughts from worldly matters, by the ingenious process of carving his
name on the seat of the pew, in corpulent letters of four inches long.

'Now,' said Wardle, after a substantial lunch, with the agreeable items
of strong beer and cherry-brandy, had been done ample justice to, 'what
say you to an hour on the ice? We shall have plenty of time.'

'Capital!' said Mr. Benjamin Allen.

'Prime!' ejaculated Mr. Bob Sawyer.

'You skate, of course, Winkle?' said Wardle.

'Ye-yes; oh, yes,' replied Mr. Winkle. 'I--I--am RATHER out of
practice.'

'Oh, DO skate, Mr. Winkle,' said Arabella. 'I like to see it so much.'

'Oh, it is SO graceful,' said another young lady. A third young lady
said it was elegant, and a fourth expressed her opinion that it was
'swan-like.'

'I should be very happy, I'm sure,' said Mr. Winkle, reddening; 'but I
have no skates.'

This objection was at once overruled. Trundle had a couple of pair,
and the fat boy announced that there were half a dozen more downstairs;
whereat Mr. Winkle expressed exquisite delight, and looked exquisitely
uncomfortable.

Old Wardle led the way to a pretty large sheet of ice; and the fat
boy and Mr. Weller, having shovelled and swept away the snow which had
fallen on it during the night, Mr. Bob Sawyer adjusted his skates with
a dexterity which to Mr. Winkle was perfectly marvellous, and described
circles with his left leg, and cut figures of eight, and inscribed upon
the ice, without once stopping for breath, a great many other pleasant
and astonishing devices, to the excessive satisfaction of Mr.
Pickwick, Mr. Tupman, and the ladies; which reached a pitch of positive
enthusiasm, when old Wardle and Benjamin Allen, assisted by the
aforesaid Bob Sawyer, performed some mystic evolutions, which they
called a reel.

All this time, Mr. Winkle, with his face and hands blue with the cold,
had been forcing a gimlet into the sole of his feet, and putting his
skates on, with the points behind, and getting the straps into a very
complicated and entangled state, with the assistance of Mr. Snodgrass,
who knew rat