In about half an hour I began to feel confoundedly uncomfortable. I was a mere cipher in the room; and what with the appalling bulk of Mr. Tims, the attention the ladies bestowed upon him, and the neglect with which they treated me, I sunk considerably in my own estimation. In proportion as this feeling took possession of me, I experienced an involuntary respect for the stranger. I admired his intimate knowledge of balls, dresses, faux pas, marriages, and gossip of all sorts—and still more I admired his bulk. I have an instinctive feeling of reverence towards "Stout Gentlemen;" and, while contrasting my own puny form with his, I laboured under a deep consciousness of personal insignificance. From being five feet eight, I seemed to shrink to five feet one; from weighing ten stones, I suddenly fell to seven and a half; while my portly rival sat opposite to me, measuring at least a foot taller than myself, and weighing good thirty stones, jockey weight. If any little fellow like me thinks of standing well with his mistress, let him never appear in her presence with such a gentleman as Mr. Tims. She will despise him to a certainty; nor, though his soul be as large as Atlas or Teneriffe, will it compensate for the paltry dimensions of his body.
What was to be done? With the ladies, it was plain, I could do nothing: with Mr. Tims, it was equally plain, I ought to do nothing—seeing that, however much he was the cause of my uneasiness, he was at least the innocent cause, and therefore neither morally nor judicially amenable to punishment. From respecting Mr. Tims I came to hate him; and I vowed internally, that, rather than be annihilated by this enlarged edition of Daniel Lambert, I would pitch him over the window. Had I been a giant, I am sure I would have done it on the spot. The giants of old, it is well known, raised Pelion upon Ossa, in their efforts to scale the throne of heaven; and tossed enormous mountains at the godhead of Jupiter himself. Unfortunately for me, Mr. Tims was a mountain, and I was no giant.
I accordingly got up, and, pretending it was necessary that I should see some person in the next street, abruptly left the room. Julia—I did not expect it—saw me to the door, shook hands with me, and said she hoped I would return to supper when my business was finished. Sweet girl! was it possible she could prefer the Man-Mountain to me?
Away I went into the open air. I had no business whatever to perform: it was mere fudge; and I resolved to go home as fast as I could.
But I did not go home. On the contrary, I kept strolling about from street to street, sometimes thinking upon Julia, sometimes upon Mr. Tims. The night was of the most melancholy description—a cold, cloudy, windy, rainy December night. Not a soul was upon the streets excepting a solitary straggler, returning hither and thither from an evening sermon, or an occasional watchman gliding past with his lantern, like an incarnation of the Will-o'-wisp. I strolled up and down for half an hour, wrapped in an olive great-coat, and having a green silk umbrella over my head. It was well I chanced to be so well fortified against the weather; for had it been otherwise, I must have been drenched to the skin. Where I went I know not, so deeply was my mind wound up in its various melancholy cogitations. This, however, I do know, that, after striking against sundry lamp-posts, and overturning a few old women in my fits of absence, I found myself precisely at the point from which I set out, viz. at the door of Julia's aunt's husband's house.
I paused for a moment, uncertain whether to enter, and, in the meantime, turning my eyes to the window, where, upon the white blind, I beheld the enormous shadow of a human being. My flesh crept with horror on witnessing this apparition, for I knew it to be the shadow of the Man-Mountain—the dim reflection of Mr. Tims. No other human being could cast such a shade. Its proportions were magnificent, and filled up the whole breadth of the window-screen; nay, the shoulders shot away latterly beyond its utmost limits, and were lost in space, having apparently nothing whereon to cast their mighty image. On beholding this vast shade, my mind was filled with a thousand exalted thoughts.
I paused at the door for sometime, uncertain whether to enter; at last my mind was made up, and I knocked, resolved to encounter the Man-Mountain a second time, and, if possible, recover the lost glances of Julia. On entering the dining-room, I found an accession to the company in the person of our landlord, who sat opposite to Mr. Tims, listening to some facetious story, which the latter gentleman seemed in the act of relating. He had come home during my absence, and, like his wife and her niece, appeared to be fascinated by the eloquence and humour of his stout friend. At least, so I judged, for he merely recognised my presence by a slight bow, and devoted the whole of his attention to the owner of the mighty shadow. Julia and her aunt were similarly occupied, and I was more neglected than ever.
Perhaps the reader may think that there was something ludicrous in the idea of such a man being in love. Not at all—the notion was sublime; almost as sublime as his shadow—almost as overwhelming as his person. Conceive the Man-Mountain playing the amiable with such a delicate young creature like Julia. Conceive him falling on his knees before her—pressing her delicate hand, and "popping the question," while his large round eyes shed tears of affection and suspense, and his huge sides shook with emotion! Conceive him enduring all the pangs of love-sickness, never telling his love; "concealment, like a worm in the bud, preying upon his damask cheek," while his hard-hearted mistress stood disdainfully by, "like pity on a monument, smiling at grief." Above all, conceive him taking the lover's leap—say from Dunnet or Duncansby-head, where the rocks tower four hundred feet above the Pentland Firth, and floundering in the waters like an enormous whale; the herring shoals hurrying away from his unwieldy gambols, as from the presence of the real sea-born leviathan. Cacus in love was not more grand, or the gigantic Polyphemus, sighing at the feet of Galatea, or infernal Pluto looking amiable beside his ravished queen. Have you seen an elephant in love? If you have, you may conceive what Mr. Tims would be in that interesting situation.
Supper was brought in. It consisted of eggs, cold veal, bacon-ham, and a Welsh rabbit. I must confess, that, perplexed as I was by all the previous events of the evening, I felt a gratification at the present moment, in the anxiety to see how the Man-Mountain would comport himself at table. I had beheld his person and his shadow with equal admiration, and I doubted not that his powers of eating were on the same great scale as his other qualifications. They were, indeed. Zounds, how he did eat! Cold veal, eggs, bacon-ham, and Welsh rabbit, disappeared "like the baseless fabric of a vision, and left not a wreck behind;" so thoroughly had nine-tenths of them taken up their abode in the bread basket (vide Jon Bee) of the Man-Mountain; the remaining tenth sufficed for the rest of the company, viz. Julia, her aunt, her aunt's husband, and myself.
Liquor was brought in, to wit, wine, brandy, whisky, and rum. I felt an intense curiosity to see on which of the four Mr. Tims would fix his choice. He fixed upon brandy, and made a capacious tumbler of hot toddy. I did the same, and asked Julia to join me in taking a single glass—I was forestalled by the Man-Mountain. I then asked the lady of the house the same thing, but was forestalled by her husband.