"Ye-yes; oh, yes," replied Mr. Winkle. "I--I--am _rather_ out of
practice."

"Oh, _do_ skate, Mr. Winkle," said Arabella. "I like to see it so much."

"Oh, it is _so_ graceful," said another young lady. A third young lady
said it was elegant, and a fourth expressed her opinion that it was
"swan-like."

"I should be very happy, I'm sure," said Mr. Winkle, reddening; "but I
have no skates."

This objection was at once overruled. Trundle had got a couple of pair,
and the fat boy announced that there were half a dozen more downstairs,
whereat Mr. Winkle expressed exquisite delight, and looked exquisitely
uncomfortable.

Old Wardle led the way to a pretty large sheet of ice; and the fat boy
and Mr. Weller, having shovelled and swept away the snow which had
fallen on it during the night, Mr. Bob Sawyer adjusted his skates with a
dexterity which to Mr. Winkle seemed perfectly marvellous, and described
circles with his left leg, and cut figures of eight, and inscribed upon
the ice, without once stopping for breath, a great many other pleasant
and astonishing devices, to the excessive satisfaction of Mr. Pickwick,
Mr. Tupman, and the ladies; which reached a pitch of positive
enthusiasm, when old Wardle and Benjamin Allen, assisted by the
aforesaid Bob Sawyer, performed some mystic evolutions, which they
called a reel.

All this time, Mr. Winkle, with his face and hands blue with the cold,