n. It was, at length,
morning. With a feeling that he should go mad if he remained any longer
in bed, he rose, and paced his chamber. The air refreshed him. He threw
himself on the floor; the cold crept over his senses, and he slept.

LXVI. THE PICKWICKIANS DISPORT THEMSELVES ON ICE.[O]

CHARLES DICKENS.--1812-1870.

_From_ THE POSTHUMOUS PAPERS OF THE PICKWICK CLUB.

"Now," said Wardle, after a substantial lunch had been done ample
justice to; "what say you to an hour on the ice? We shall have plenty
of time."

"Capital!" said Mr. Benjamin Allen.

"Prime!" ejaculated Mr. Bob Sawyer.

"You skate, of course, Winkle?" said Wardle.

"Ye-yes; oh, yes," replied Mr. Winkle. "I--I--am _rather_ out of
practice."

"Oh, _do_ skate, Mr. Winkle," said Arabella. "I like to see it so much."

"Oh, it is _so_ graceful," said another young lady.

A third young lady said it was elegant, and a fourth expressed her
opinion that it was "swan-like."

"I should be very happy, I'm sure," said Mr. Winkle, reddening; "but I
have no skates."

This objection was at once over-ruled. Trundle had a couple of pair, and
the fat boy announced that there were half a dozen more down stairs:
whereat Mr. Winkle expressed exquisite delight, and looked exquisitely
uncomfortable.

Old Wardle led the way to a pretty large sheet of ice; and the fat boy
and Mr. Weller, having shovelled and swept away the snow which had
fallen on it during the night, Mr. Bob Sawyer adjusted his skates with a
dexterity which to Mr. Winkle was perfectly marvellous, and described
circles with his left leg, and cut figures of eight, and inscribed upon
the ice, without once stopping for breath, a great many other pleasant
and astonishing devices, to the excessive satisfaction of Mr. Pickwick,
Mr. Tupman, and the ladies: which reached a pitch of positive
enthusiasm, when old Wardle and Benjamin Allen, assisted by the
aforesaid Bob Sawyer, performed some mystic evolutions, which they
called a reel.

All this time, Mr. Winkle, with his face and hands blue with the cold,
had been forcing a gimlet into the soles of his feet, and putting his
skates on, with the points behind, and getting the straps into a very
complicated and entangled state, with the assistance of Mr. Snodgrass,
who knew rather less about skates than a Hindoo. At length, however,
with the assistance of Mr. Weller, the unfortunate skates were firmly
screwed and buckled on, and Mr. Winkle was raise