Sketches by Boz - Penn State University

Charles Dickensanother, it most unquestionably is the being compelled as if into a new state of existence, by a singular illusion.You are apprenticed to a trunk-maker; how, orto rise by candlelight. If you have ever doubted thefact, you are painfully convinced of your error, on the why, or when, or wherefore, you don’t take the troublemorning of your departure. You left strict orders, overnight,to be called at half-past four, and you have done lid of a portmanteau. Confound that other apprenticeto inquire; but there you are, pasting the lining in thenothing all night but doze for five minutes at a time, in the back shop, how he is hammering!—rap, rap, rap—and start up suddenly from a terrific dream of a large what an industrious fellow he must be! you have heardchurch-clock with the small hand running round, with him at work for half an hour past, and he has beenastonishing rapidity, to every figure on the dial-plate. hammering incessantly the whole time. Rap, rap, rap,At last, completely exhausted, you fall gradually into a again—he’s talking now—what’s that he said? Fiverefreshing sleep—your thoughts grow confused—the o’clock! You make a violent exertion, and start up instage-coaches, which have been ‘going off’ before your bed. The vision is at once dispelled; the trunk-maker’seyes all night, become less and less distinct, until they shop is your own bedroom, and the other apprenticego off altogether; one moment you are driving with all your shivering servant, who has been vainly endeavouringto wake you for the last quarter of an hour, atthe skill and smartness of an experienced whip—thenext you are exhibiting E LA Ducrow, on the off-leader; the imminent risk of breaking either his own knucklesanon you are closely muffled up, inside, and have just or the panels of the door.recognised in the person of the guard an old schoolfellow, You proceed to dress yourself, with all possible dispatch.The flaring flat candle with the long snuff, giveswhose funeral, even in your dream, you remember tohave attended eighteen years ago. At last you fall into a light enough to show that the things you want, are notstate of complete oblivion, from which you are aroused, where they ought to be, and you undergo a trifling de-133