378 THE BLOOMSBURY CHRISTENING. 



the best face that is to say, an uncommonly miserable one upon 

 the matter; and purchased a handsome silver mug for the infant 

 Kitterbell, upon which he ordered the initials " F. C. W. K.," with 

 the customary untrained grape-vine-looking nourishes, and a large 

 full stop, to be engraved forthwith. 



Monday was a fine day, Tuesday was delightful, Wednesday was 

 equal to either, and Thursday was finer than ever ; four successive 

 fine days in London ! Hackney coachmen became revolutionary, and 

 crossing sweepers began to doubt the existence of a First Cause. The 

 Morning Herald informed its readers that an old woman, in.Camden 

 Town, had been heard to say, that the fineness of the season was 

 " unprecedented in the memory of the oldest inhabitant ;" and Isling- 

 ton clerks, with large families and small salaries, left off their black 

 gaiters, disdained to carry their once green cotton umbrellas, and 

 walked to town in the conscious pride of white stockings, and cleanly 

 brushed Bluchers. Dumps beheld all this with an eye of supreme 

 contempt his triumph was at hand. He knew that if it had been 

 fine for four weeks instead of four days, it would rain when he went 

 out; he was lugubriously happy in the conviction that Friday would 

 be a wretched day and so it was. " I knew how it would be," said 

 Dumps, as he turned round opposite the Mansion House at half-past 

 eleven o'clock on the Friday morning. " I knew how it would be, / 

 am concerned, and that's enough ;" and certainly the appearance of 

 the day was sufficient to depress the spirits of a much more buoyant- 

 hearted individual than himself. It had rained, without a moment's 

 cessation, since eight o'clock ; everybody that passed up Cheapside, 

 and down Cheapside, looked wet, cold, and dirty. All sorts of for- 

 gotten and long-concealed umbrellas had been put into requisition. 

 Cabs whisked about, with the " fare" as carefully boxed up behind 

 two glazed calico curtains, as any mysterious picture in any one of 

 Mrs. Radcliffe's castles ; omnibus horses smoked like steam-engines ; 

 nobody thought of " standing up' 7 under doorways or arches ; they 

 were painfully convinced it was a hopeless case ; and so everybody 

 went hastily along, jumbling and jostling, and swearing and per- 

 spiring, and slipping about, like amateur skaters behind wooden 

 chairs on the Serpentine on a frosty Sunday. 



Dumps paused ; he could not think of walking, being rather smart 

 for the christening. If he took a cab he was sure to be spilt, and a 

 hackney-coach was too expensive for his economical ideas. An om- 

 nibus was waiting at the opposite corner it was a desperate case 

 he had never heard of an omnibus upsetting or running away, and if 

 the cad did knock him down, he could " pull him up" in return. 



" Now, sir ! " cried the young gentleman who officiated as " cad " 

 to the " Lads of the Village," which was the name of the machine 

 just noticed. Dumps crossed. 



" This vay, sir !" shouted the driver of the te Hark away," pulling 

 up his vehicle immediately across the door of the opposition " This 

 vay, sir he's full." Dumps hesitated, whereupon the "Lads of the 

 Village" commenced pouring out a torrent of abuse against the " Hark 

 away ;" but the conductor of the " Admiral Napier" settled the con- 

 test in a most satisfactory manner for all parties, by seizing Dumps 



