He then took off and folded up his coat, waistcoat, and neckcloth, and slowly drawing on his tasselled nightcap, secured it firmly on his head, by tying beneath his chin the strings which he always had attached to that article of dress.

It was at this moment that the absurdity of his recent bewilderment struck upon his mind.

Throwing himself back in the rush-bottomed chair, Mr.Pickwick laughed to himself so heartily, that it would have been quite delightful to any man of well-constituted mind to have watched the smiles that expanded his amiable features as they shone forth from beneath the nightcap.
'It is the best idea,' said Mr.Pickwick to himself, smiling till he almost cracked the nightcap strings--'it is the best idea, my losing myself in this place, and wandering about these staircases, that I ever heard of.

Droll, droll, very droll.' Here Mr.Pickwick smiled again, a broader smile than before, and was about to continue the process of undressing, in the best possible humour, when he was suddenly stopped by a most unexpected interruption: to wit, the entrance into the room of some person with a candle, who, after locking the door, advanced to the dressing-table, and set down the light upon it.
The smile that played on Mr.Pickwick's features was instantaneously lost in a look of the most unbounded and wonder-stricken surprise.
The person, whoever it was, had come in so suddenly and with so little noise, that Mr.Pickwick had had no time to call out, or oppose their entrance.

Who could it be?
A robber?
Some evil-minded person who had seen him come upstairs with a handsome watch in his hand, perhaps.