bottle, and his own particular Jamaica--convenient to his
hand; with hot water, fragrant lemons, white lump sugar, and all things
fitting; from which choice materials, Sampson, by no means insensible
to their claims upon his attention, had compounded a mighty glass of
punch reeking hot; which he was at that very moment stirring up with a
teaspoon, and contemplating with looks in which a faint assumption of
sentimental regret, struggled but weakly with a bland and comfortable
joy. At the same table, with both her elbows upon it, was Mrs Jiniwin;
no longer sipping other people's punch feloniously with teaspoons, but
taking deep draughts from a jorum of her own; while her daughter--not
exactly with ashes on her head, or sackcloth on her back, but
preserving a very decent and becoming appearance of sorrow
nevertheless--was reclining in an easy chair, and soothing her grief
with a smaller allowance of the same glib liquid. There were also
present, a couple of water-side men, bearing between them certain
machines called drags; even these fellows were accommodated with a
stiff glass a-piece; and as they drank with a great relish, and were
naturally of a red-nosed, pimple-faced, convivial look, their presence
rather increased than detracted from that decided appearance of
comfort, which was the great characteristic of the party.

'If I could poison that dear old lady's rum and water,' murmured Quilp,
'I'd die happy.'

'Ah!' said Mr Brass, breaking the silence, and raising his eyes to the
ceiling with a sigh, 'Who knows but he may be looking down upon us now!
Who knows but he may be surveying of us from--from somewheres or
another, and contemplating us with a watchful eye! Oh Lor!'

Here Mr Brass stopped to drink half his punch, and then resumed;
looking at the other half, as he spoke, with a dejected smile.

'I can almost fancy,' said the lawyer shaking his head, 'that I see his
eye glistening down at the very bottom of my liquor. When shall we
look upon his like again? Never, never!' One minute we are
here'--holding his tumbler before his eyes--'the next we are
there'--gulping down its contents, and striking himself emphatically a
little below the chest--'in the silent tomb. To think that I should be
drinking his very rum! It seems like a dream.'

With the view, no doubt, of testing the reality of his position, Mr
Brass pushed his tumbler as he spoke towards Mrs Jiniwin for the
purpose of being replenished; and tur