Page:Fitzgerald - Pickwickian manners and customs (1897).djvu/33

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PICKWICKIAN MANNERS AND CUSTOMS.
27

spoke also of a shuffle of the feet during the process.

And again. There is a piquant quaintness in the upside-down turning of every thing in this wonderful Book. Such as Perker's eyes, which are described as playing with his "inquisitive nose" a "perpetual game of"—what, think you? Bo-Peep? not at all: but "peep-bo." How odd and unaccountable! We all knew the little "Bo-peep," and her sheep—but "peep-bo" is quite a reversal.

Gas was introduced into London about the year 1812 and was thought a prodigiously "brilliant illuminant." But in the Pickwickian days it was still in a crude state—and we can see in the first print—that of the club room—only two attenuated jets over the table. In many of the prints we find the dip or mould candle, which was used to light Sam as he sat in the coffee room of the Blue Boar. Mr. Nupkins' kitchen was not lit by gas.