Loud cries of 'Shame,' mingled with groans and hisses, prevailed for a quarter of an hour.
Mr.Whiffers then added that he feared a portion of this outrage might be traced to his own forbearing and accommodating disposition.

He had a distinct recollection of having once consented to eat salt butter, and he had, moreover, on an occasion of sudden sickness in the house, so far forgotten himself as to carry a coal-scuttle up to the second floor.

He trusted he had not lowered himself in the good opinion of his friends by this frank confession of his faults; and he hoped the promptness with which he had resented the last unmanly outrage on his feelings, to which he had referred, would reinstate him in their good opinion, if he had.
Mr.Whiffers's address was responded to, with a shout of admiration, and the health of the interesting martyr was drunk in a most enthusiastic manner; for this, the martyr returned thanks, and proposed their visitor, Mr.Weller--a gentleman whom he had not the pleasure of an intimate acquaintance with, but who was the friend of Mr.John Smauker, which was a sufficient letter of recommendation to any society of gentlemen whatever, or wherever.

On this account, he should have been disposed to have given Mr.Weller's health with all the honours, if his friends had been drinking wine; but as they were taking spirits by way of a change, and as it might be inconvenient to empty a tumbler at every toast, he should propose that the honours be understood.
At the conclusion of this speech, everybody took a sip in honour of Sam; and Sam having ladled out, and drunk, two full glasses of punch in honour of himself, returned thanks in a neat speech.
'Wery much obliged to you, old fellers,' said Sam, ladling away at the punch in the most unembarrassed manner possible, 'for this here compliment; which, comin' from sich a quarter, is wery overvelmin'.
I've heered a good deal on you as a body, but I will say, that I never thought you was sich uncommon nice men as I find you air.

I only hope you'll take care o' yourselves, and not compromise nothin' o' your dignity, which is a wery charmin' thing to see, when one's out a-walkin', and has always made me wery happy to look at, ever since I was a boy about half as high as the brass-headed stick o' my wery respectable friend, Blazes, there.