The Project Gutenberg EBook of Punch, or the London Charivari, Vol. 1,
November 20, 1841, by Various

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Title: Punch, or the London Charivari, Vol. 1, November 20, 1841

Author: Various

Release Date: February 7, 2005 [EBook #14937]

Language: English

Character set encoding: ASCII

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PUNCH, OR THE LONDON CHARIVARI.

VOL. 1.

FOR THE WEEK ENDING NOVEMBER 20, 1841.

* * * * *

MYSELF, PUNCH, AND THE KEELEYS.

I dined with my old friend and schoolfellow, Jack Withers, one day last
September. On the previous morning, on my way to the India House, I had
run up against a stout individual on Cornhill, and on looking in his face
as I stopped for a moment to apologise, an abrupt "This is surely Jack
Withers," burst from my lips, followed by--"God bless me! Will Bayfield!"
from his. After a hurried question or two, we shook hands warmly and
parted, with the understanding that I was to cut my mutton with him next
day.

Seventeen years had elapsed since Withers and I had seen or heard of each
other. Having a good mercantile connexion, he had pitched upon commerce as
his calling, and entered a counting-house in Idollane in the same year
that I, a raw young surgeon, embarked for India to seek my fortune in the
medical service of the East India Company.

Things had gone well with honest Jack; from a long, thin, weazel of a
youngster, he had become a burly ruddy-faced gentleman, with an aldermanic
rotundity of paunch, which gave the world assurance that his ordinary fare
by no means consisted of deaf nuts; he had already, as he told me,
accumulated a very pretty independence, which was yearly increasing, and
was, moreover, a snug bachelor, with a well-arranged residence in
Finsbury-square; in short, it was evident that Jack was "a fellow with two
coats and everything handsome about him."

As for me, I was a verification of the adage about the rolling stone;
having gathered a very small quantity of "moss," in the shape of worldly
goods. I had spent sixteen years i