So Sponge smoked and thought, and thought and smoked, till the
water in the foot-bath again getting cold, and the shades of night drawing
on, he at last started up like a man determined to awake himself, and
poking a match into the fire, lighted the candles on the toilet-table, and
proceeded to adorn himself. Having again got himself into the killing
tights and buckled pumps, with a fine flower-fronted shirt, ere he embarked
on the delicacies and difficulties of the starcher, he stirred the little
pittance of a fire, and, folding himself in his dressing-gown, endeavoured
to prepare his mind for the calm consideration of all the minute bearings
of the question by a little more _Mogg_. In idea he transferred himself to
London, now fancying himself standing at the end of Burlington Arcade,
hailing a Fulham or Turnham Green 'bus; now wrangling with a conductor for
charging him sixpence when there was a pennant flapping at his nose with
the words "ALL THE WAY 3D." upon it; now folding the wooden doors
of a hansom cab in Oxford Street, calculating the extreme distance he could
go for an eightpenny fare: until at last he fell into a downright vacant
sort of reading, without rhyme or reason, just as one sometimes takes a
read of a directory or a dictionary--"Conduit Street, George Street, to or
from the Adelphi Terrace, Astley's Amphitheatre, Baker Street, King Street,
Bryanston Square any part, Covent Garden Theatre, Foundling Hospital,
Hatton Garden," and so on, till the thunder of the gong aroused him to a
recollection of his duties.
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