"Good Heavens! Dobbin, where have you been?" Osborne said, seizing the

white cashmere shawl from his friend's arm, and huddling up Amelia in

it.--"Make yourself useful, and take charge of Jos here, whilst I take

the ladies to the carriage."

Jos was for rising to interfere--but a single push from Osborne's

finger sent him puffing back into his seat again, and the lieutenant

was enabled to remove the ladies in safety. Jos kissed his hand to

them as they retreated, and hiccupped out "Bless you! Bless you!" Then,

seizing Captain Dobbin's hand, and weeping in the most pitiful way, he

confided to that gentleman the secret of his loves. He adored that

girl who had just gone out; he had broken her heart, he knew he had, by

his conduct; he would marry her next morning at St. George's, Hanover

Square; he'd knock up the Archbishop of Canterbury at Lambeth: he

would, by Jove! and have him in readiness; and, acting on this hint,

Captain Dobbin shrewdly induced him to leave the gardens and hasten to

Lambeth Palace, and, when once out of the gates, easily conveyed Mr.

Jos Sedley into a hackney-coach, which deposited him safely at his

lodgings.

George Osborne conducted the girls home in safety: and when the door

was closed upon them, and as he walked across Russell Square, laughed

so as to astonish the watchman. Amelia looked very ruefully at her

friend, as they went up stairs, and kissed her, and went to bed without

any more talking.

"He must propose to-morrow," thought Rebecca. "He called me his soul's

darling, four times; he squeezed my hand in Amelia's presence. He must

propose to-morrow." And so thought Amelia, too. And I dare say she

thought of the dress she was to wear as bridesmaid, and of the presents

which she should make to her nice little sister-in-law, and of a

subsequent ceremony in which she herself might play a principal part,

&c., and &c., and &c., and &c.

Oh, ignorant young creatures! How little do you know the effect of rack

punch! What is the rack in the punch, at night, to the rack in the head

of a morning? To this truth I can vouch as a man; there is no headache

in the world like that caused by Vauxhall punch. Through the lapse of

twenty years, I can remember the consequence of two glasses! two

wine-glasses! but two, upon the honour of a gentleman; and Joseph

Sedley, who had a liver complaint, had swallowed at least a quart of

the abominable mixture.

That next morning, which Rebecca thought was to dawn upon her fortune,

found Sedley groaning in agonies which the pen refuses to describe.

Soda-water was not invented yet. Small beer--will it be believed!--was

the only drink with which unhappy gentlemen soothed the fever of their

previous night's potation. With this mild beverage before him, George

Osborne found the ex-Collector of Boggley Wollah groaning on the sofa

at his lodgings. Dobbin was already in the room, good-naturedly

tending his patient of the night before. The two officers, looking at

the prostrate Bacchanalian, and askance at each other, exchanged the

most frightful sympathetic grins. Even Sedley's valet, the most solemn

and correct of gentlemen, with the muteness and gravity of an

undertaker, could hardly keep his countenance in order, as he looked at

his unfortunate master.




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