“I think I’ll wait,” said Mr. Pickwick. There was no reply; so Mr. Pickwick sat down unbidden, and listened to the loud ticking of the clock and the murmured conversation of the clerks.

“That was a game, wasn’t it?” said one of the gentlemen, in a brown coat and brass buttons, inky drabs, and bluchers, at the conclusion of some inaudible relation of his previous evening’s adventures.

“Devilish good⁠—devilish good,” said the Seidlitz-powder man.

“Tom Cummins was in the chair,” said the man with the brown coat. “It was half-past four when I got to Somers Town, and then I was so uncommon lushy, that I couldn’t find the place where the latchkey went in, and was obliged to knock up the old ’ooman. I say, I wonder what old Fogg ’ud say, if he knew it. I should get the sack, I s’pose⁠—eh?”