The Doctor was once staying with the late great and good Mr. Roscoe,
when many of the most distinguished Whigs were his guests also, out of
compliment to whom the Doctor forbore to indulge in his customary
after-dinner pipe. At length, when wine and words had circulated
briskly, and twilight began to set in, he insisted upon mounting to
his own room to have a whiff _solus_. Having groped his way up stairs,
somewhat exhausted with the effort, he threw himself into what he took
to be an arm-chair. Suddenly the ears of the party were assailed with
awful moans and groans, as of some one in tribulation. Mr. Roscoe
hastened to learn the cause, and no sooner reached the stairs' foot,
than he heard the Doctor calling lustily for his man John, adding, in
more supplicatory accents, "Will nobody help a Christian man in
distress! Will nobody help a Christian man in distress!" Mr. Roscoe
mounted to the rescue, but could not forbear a hearty laugh, as he
beheld Dr. P. locked in the close embrace of a large old-fashioned
grate, which he had mistaken for an arm-chair, and from which he was
in vain struggling to relieve himself.
* * * * *