DIARY OF -A JOKE-HUNTER. 299 



fine, should walk. Laundress half shrieked, and as I went down, 

 muttered something about the wind blowing me away. Porters in 

 the Inn all stared. Palmer threw up the' window, and called Watts 

 and the rest of the firm to look at me. 



Found my way to the Camden's Head, Camden Town. Landlord's 

 Christian initial and surname in full on the door : B. FAT. Felt hungry 

 as well as posed, and condescended to go in. Mr. Fat and his family 

 at dinner in the bar ; politely invited me to partake ; felt the effluvia 

 irresistible, and found the dish delicious. Ascertained the name, and 

 mention it for the benefit of invalids ; it was bubble and squeak. 

 Landlord prescribed something " to keep it company," which he 

 termed Burton ; but I don't remember having met with such a name 

 in the Pharmacopeia. The dose was administered to me in three 

 draughts, out of rather tall glasses, which I remarked were not gra- 

 duated. The decoction was pleasant, clear, and of a bright amber 

 colour. Of its efficacy I soon felt convinced. Such a flow, such a 

 torrent of spirits I had not experienced since the day I took cham- 

 bers. Ventured to make Mr. Fat so far my friend as to shew him 

 Sir A. C.'s prescription. As soon as he had spelled through it, he 

 avowed that Sir A. C. was the wisest man (barring himself) in Great 

 Britain. 



Begged to differ from him, and pointed to the mysterious prescrip- 

 tion as triumphant documentary evidence in support of my view of 

 the case. Landlord pitied me, and explained. The gold letters over 

 the door of the Camden's Head (the advice of which I was told to 

 take) what did they say ? why B. FAT to be sure. Saw so far into 

 the affair at once, but threw out a hint as to the possibility of fol- 

 lowing such excellent advice. No man, I was sure, felt more ambi- 

 tious of filling his coat ; no man took more care of himself than I did ; 

 yet, in spite of all I could do, my flesh, like the courage of Acres, 

 seemed to ooze out of the palms of my hands. I had actually mis- 

 laid or lost seven oz. one dwt. in six days, and more than half a Ib. 

 on the seventh ! 



In surrebutter, landlord threw doubts on the regularity of my pro- 

 ceedings; instantly explained them; and as a reward for my can- 

 dour had the mortification of being commiserated beyond endurance, 

 and called " Poor, dear, foolish young gentleman," by Mrs. Fat. 

 Her husband, for his part, energetically, so far as words could avail, 

 sent my Condensation of All Authors to Bath, Jericho, and another 

 place not found in family maps. He then became a voluminous 

 commentator on my medical man's prescription, which, as he con- 

 tended, meant nothing else than that I should walk to his house once 

 a day for the sake of getting an appetite, take pot luck, and the ad- 

 vice gratuitously afforded by his door-post. Demurred on my part 

 that eating and walking were not infallible, and instanced Jones the 

 metaphysician, who, though a pedestrian, and devours more than 

 any man in the Inn, is lean as a colt on a common ; adding, that his 

 head was a perfect caput mortuum. Mrs. Fat, when I had translated 

 my Latin, saw through the thing in a twinkling. Jones was not a 

 jolly fellow ! (and to say the truth, no man can be more decisively 

 saturnine,) " LAUGH and grow fat," was at once recommended to me 



