f splashing, and cracking, and struggling, Mr. Pickwick was at length
fairly extricated from his unpleasant position, and once more stood on
dry land.

'Oh, he'll catch his death of cold,' said Emily.

'Dear old thing!' said Arabella. 'Let me wrap this shawl round you, Mr.
Pickwick.'

'Ah, that's the best thing you can do,' said Wardle; 'and when you've
got it on, run home as fast as your legs can carry you, and jump into
bed directly.' A dozen shawls were offered on the instant. Three or four
of the thickest having been selected, Mr. Pickwick was wrapped up, and
started off, under the guidance of Mr. Weller; presenting the singular
phenomenon of an elderly gentleman, dripping wet, and without a hat,
with his arms bound down to his sides, skimming over the ground, without
any clearly-defined purpose, at the rate of six good English miles an
hour.

But Mr. Pickwick cared not for appearances in such an extreme case, and
urged on by Sam Weller, he kept at the very top of his speed until he
reached the door of Manor Farm, where Mr. Tupman had arrived some five
minutes before, and had frightened the old lady into palpitations of the
heart by impressing her with the unalterable conviction that the kitchen
chimney was on fire--a calamity which always presented itself in glowing
colours to the old lady's mind, when anybody about her evinced the
smallest agitation.

Mr. Pickwick paused not an instant until he was snug in bed. Sam Weller
lighted a blazing fire in the room, and took up his dinner; a bowl of
punch was carried up afterwards, and a grand carouse held in honour of
his safety. Old Wardle would not hear of his rising, so they made the
bed the chair, and Mr. Pickwick presided. A second and a third bowl were
ordered in; and when Mr. Pickwick awoke next morning, there was not a
symptom of rheumatism about him; which proves, as Mr. Bob Sawyer very
justly observed, that there is nothing like hot punch in such cases; and
that if ever hot punch did fail to act as a preventive, it was merely
because the patient fell into the vulgar error of not taking enough of
it.

The jovial party broke up next morning. Breakings-up are capital things
in our school-days, but in after life they are painful enough. Death,
self-interest, and fortune's changes, are every day breaking up many a
happy group, and scattering them far and wide; and the boys and girls
never come back again. We do not mean to say that it was exactly the
case in