375 

 THE BLOOMSBURY CHRISTENING. 



MR. NICODEMUS DUMPS, or, as his acquaintance called him, " long 

 Dumps/' was a bachelor, six feet .high, and fifty years old, cross, 

 cadaverous, odd, and ill-natured. He was never happy but when 

 he was miserable (pardon the contradiction) ; and always miserable 

 when he had the best reason to be happy. The only real comfort of 

 his existence was to make everybody about him wretched then he 

 might be truly said to enjoy life. He was afflicted with a situation 

 in the Bank worth five hundred a-year, and he rented a " first floor 

 furnished" at Pentonville, which he originally took because it com- 

 manded a dismal prospect of an adjacent churchyard. He was 

 familiar with the face of every tombstone, and the burial service 

 seemed to excite his strongest sympathy. His friends said he was 

 surly he insisted he was nervous ; they thought him a lucky dog, 

 but he protested that he was "the most unfortunate man in the 

 world." Cold as he was, and wretched as he declared himself to be, 

 he was not wholly unsusceptible of attachments. He revered the 

 memory of Hoyle, as he was himself an admirable and imperturbable 

 whist-player, and he chuckled with delight at a fretful and impatient 

 adversary. He adored King Herod for his massacre of the inno- 

 cents ; for if he hated one thing more than another, it was a child. 

 However, he could hardly be said to hate any thing in particular, 

 because he disliked every thing in general ; but perhaps his greatest 

 antipathies were cabs, old women, doors that would not shut, musical 

 amateurs, and omnibus cads. He subscribed to the Society for the 

 Suppression of Vice for the pleasure of putting a stop to any harm- 

 less amusements ; and he contributed largely towards the support of 

 two itinerant methodist parsons, under the amiable hope that if cir- 

 cumstances rendered many happy in this world, they might per- 

 chance be rendered miserable by fears for the next. 



Mr. Dumps had a nephew who had been married about a year, 

 and who was somewhat of a favourite with his uncle, because he was 

 an admirable subject to exercise his misery-creating powers upon. 

 Mr. Charles Kitterbell was a small, sharp, spare man, with a very 

 large head, and a broad good-humoured countenance. He looked 

 like a faded giant, with the head and face partially restored ; and he 

 had a cast in his eye which rendered it quite impossible for any one 

 with whom he conversed to know where he was looking. His ey< s 

 appeared fixed on the wall, and he was staring you out of counte- 

 nance ; in short, there was no catching his eye, and perhaps it is a 

 merciful dispensation of Providence that such eyes are not catching. 

 In addition to these characteristics, it may be added that Mr. Charles 

 Kitterbell was one of the most credulous and matter-of-fact little 

 personages that ever took to himself a wife, and for himself a house 

 in Great Russell-street, Russell-square (Uncle Dumps always dropped 

 the " Russell-square," and inserted in lieu thereof, the dreadful 

 words " Tottenham-court-road"). 



" No, but uncle, 'pon my life you must you must promise to be 



