_Dombey and Son_ is by no means a “thirsty” work; though Joey Bagstock was a votary of the bowl, like old Mrs. Brown. The rest of the company put together (I except “the Chicken”) would not have enabled a publican to pay his rent, and one of the most melancholy parts of the book is the mention made therein of only one bottle of the old Madeira remaining in the cellar of Sol Gills, at a time when most of the other characters in the book—male and female—are making use of his house. Next to my _Pickwick_ I love my _Great Expectations_. Brandy-and-tar- water, imbibed by Pumblechook, in mistake, at the Christmas dinner, should properly come under the heading of “Strange Swallows”; but the capacity of those two bottles of port and sherry, which he brought as a present on that occasion, has always been a puzzle to me. Joe, probably, would not be allowed more than a glass, and, naturally, {223} little Pip would be out of it; but there remained Wopsle, Mr. and Mrs. Hubble, and Pumblechook himself; whilst afterwards the sergeant joined in the treat, and had two glasses. And all these people were served from one bottle; for we are distinctly told that the second cork was not drawn until the first bottle had been emptied. Miss Havisham’s relations having been brewers, beer was naturally the refreshment offered to little Pip, whilst in service there, although there seems to have been a bottle or two of wine in the cellars, for the benefit of Mr. Jaggers and others. That worthy, like most successful lawyers of the present day, was a light luncher—a sandwich, and the contents of a flask of sherry serving him for the purpose; but we are told that at his dinners both meat and drink were unexceptionable. His great hand always savoured of scented soap, and at luncheon the odour of superior sherry pervaded his office. The convict’s emissary, himself a released felon, stirred his rum-and-water with a file; and this appears to have been the favoured drink of the “returned transport,” Magwitch. There was a large consumption of port and sherry—chiefly by Pumblechook—after the remains of Mrs. Gargery had been consigned to the earth; and what with frequent visits, on the part of the inhabitants of those parts, to “The Jolly Bargemen” and “The Boar,” the landlords of those establishments must have done a thriving trade indeed.