purest of motives, has blended with this milk-punch, shall not
disagree with me to-morrow morning? Can chemistry, Count Fosco,
thus thwart malign constitutional tendency?"

These were your words, sir, and I am now ready to answer your deep-
searching question in the affirmative. Prolonged assiduous
application to my Art has shown me how to preserve the lemon in
Milk Punch, and yet destroy, or disengage, the deleterious
elements. Will you so greatly honour science, and Fosco her
servant, as to sup with me on the night of the twenty-fifth, at
nine o'clock, and prove (you need not dread the test) whether a
true follower of knowledge or a vain babbler signs--in exile--the
name of

ISIDOR OTTAVIO BALDASSARE FOSCO?


From Mr. Pickwick to the Count Fosco.
May 24.


My Dear Sir,--Many thanks for your very kind invitation. Apart
from the interests of science, the pleasure of your company alone
would be more than enough to make me gladly accept it. I shall
have the enjoyment of testing your milk-punch to-morrow night at
nine, with the confident expectation that your admirable studies
will have overcome a tendency which for many years has prevented me
from relishing, as I could wish, one of the best things in this
good world. Lemon, in fact, has always disagreed with me, as
Professor Allen or Sir Robert Sawyer will be able to assure you; so