There are few things more worrying than sitting up for somebody, especially if that somebody be at a party.You cannot help thinking how quickly the time passes with them, which drags so heavily with you; and the more you think of this, the more your hopes of their speedy arrival decline.Clocks tick so loud, too, when you are sitting up alone, and you seem as if you had an under garment of cobwebs on.First, something tickles your right knee, and then the same sensation irritates your left.You have no sooner changed your position, than it comes again in the arms; when you have fidgeted your limbs into all sorts of odd shapes, you have a sudden relapse in the nose, which you rub as if to rub it off--as there is no doubt you would, if you could.Eyes, too, are mere personal inconveniences; and the wick of one candle gets an inch and a half long, while you are snuffing the other.These, and various other little nervous annoyances, render sitting up for a length of time after everybody else has gone to bed, anything but a cheerful amusement.
This was just Mr.Dowler's opinion, as he sat before the fire, and felt honestly indignant with all the inhuman people at the party who were keeping him up.He was not put into better humour either, by the reflection that he had taken it into his head, early in the evening, to think he had got an ache there, and so stopped at home.At length, after several droppings asleep, and fallings forward towards the bars, and catchings backward soon enough to prevent being branded in the face, Mr.Dowler made up his mind that he would throw himself on the bed in the back-room and think --not sleep, of course.
"I'm a heavy sleeper," said Mr.Dowler, as he flung himself on the bed.
"I must keep awake.I suppose I shall hear a knock here.Yes.I thought so.I can hear the watchman.There he goes.Fainter now though.A little fainter.He's turning the corner.Ah!" When Mr.Dowler arrived at this point, he turned the corner at which he had been long hesitating, and fell fast asleep.
Just as the clock struck three, there was blown into the crescent a sedan-chair with Mrs.Dowler inside, borne by one short fat chairman, and one long thin one, who had had much ado to keep their bodies perpendicular:
to say nothing of the chair.But on that high ground, and in the crescent, which the wind swept round and round as if it were going to tear the paving stones up, its fury was tremendous.They were very glad to set the chair down, and give a good round loud double-knock at the street door.
They waited some time, but nobody came.
"Servants is in the arms o' Porpus, I think," said the short chairman, warming his hands at the attendant link-boy's torch.
"I wish he'd give 'em a squeeze and wake 'em," observed the long one.
"Knock again, will you, if you please," cried Mrs.Dowler from the chair.
"Knock two or three times, if you please."The short man was quite willing to get the job over, as soon as possible;so he stood on the step, and gave four or five most startling double knocks, of eight or ten knocks a piece: while the long man went into the road, and looked up at the windows for a light.
Nobody came.It was all as silent and dark as ever.
"Dear me!" said Mrs.Dowler."You must knock again, if you please.""There ain't a bell, is there, ma'am?" said the short chairman.
"Yes, there is," interposed the link-boy, "I've been a ringing at it ever so long.""It's only a handle," said Mrs.Dowler, "the wire's broken.""I wish the servants' heads wos," growled the long man.
"I must trouble you to knock again, if you please," said Mrs.Dowler with the utmost politeness.
The short man did knock again several times, without producing the smallest effect.The tall man, growing very impatient, then relieved him, and kept on perpetually knocking double-knocks of two loud knocks each, like an insane postman.
At length Mr.Winkle began to dream that he was at a club, and that the members being very refractory, the chairman was obliged to hammer the table a good deal to preserve order; then, he had a confused notion of an auction room where there were no bidders, and the auctioneer was buying everything in; and ultimately he began to think it just within the bounds of possibility that somebody might be knocking at the street door.To make quite certain, however, he remained quiet in bed for ten minutes or so, and listened; and when he had counted two or three and thirty knocks, he felt quite satisfied, and gave himself a great deal of credit for being so wakeful.
"Rap rap--rap rap--rap rap--ra, ra, ra, ra, ra, rap!" went the knocker.