There was the widow before him, bouncing bodily here and there, with unwonted vigour; and Mr.Tracy Tupman hopping about, with a face expressive of the most intense solemnity, dancing (as a good many people do) as if a quadrille were not a thing to be laughed at, but a severe trial to the feelings, which it requires inflexible resolution to encounter.
Silently and patiently did the doctor bear all this, and all the handings of negus, and watching for glasses, and darting for biscuits, and coquetting, that ensued; but, a few seconds after the stranger had disappeared to lead Mrs.Budger to her carriage, he darted swiftly from the room with every particle of his hitherto-bottled-up indignation effervescing, from all parts of his countenance, in a perspiration of passion.
The stranger was returning, and Mr.Tupman was beside him.

He spoke in a low tone, and laughed.

The little doctor thirsted for his life.

He was exulting.

He had triumphed.
'Sir!' said the doctor, in an awful voice, producing a card, and retiring into an angle of the passage, 'my name is Slammer, Doctor Slammer, sir--97th Regiment--Chatham Barracks--my card, Sir, my card.' He would have added more, but his indignation choked him.
'Ah!' replied the stranger coolly, 'Slammer--much obliged--polite attention--not ill now, Slammer--but when I am--knock you up.' 'You--you're a shuffler, sir,' gasped the furious doctor, 'a poltroon--a coward--a liar--a--a--will nothing induce you to give me your card, sir!' 'Oh! I see,' said the stranger, half aside, 'negus too strong here--liberal landlord--very foolish--very--lemonade much better--hot rooms--elderly gentlemen--suffer for it in the morning--cruel--cruel;' and he moved on a step or two.
'You are stopping in this house, Sir,' said the indignant little man; 'you are intoxicated now, Sir; you shall hear from me in the morning, sir.