The Steam-Packet: A Tale of the River and the Ocean — page 25: what you’re looking at

Machine-transcribed from the original scan — historical spelling and the odd misread are preserved.

8 THE STEAM PACKET, manifested that extreme caution which usually characterises great financiers,) was that the club owed him a balance of four shillings and threepence halfpenny ; and that the first book ever kept in the trea- sury department of the club had been carried away by the gentleman _ who first presided over that department, and who, it appears, one day repaired to some distant place, most probably in a fit of absence of mind, as he entirely forgot to give any account, previous to his jour- ney, of the hundred and odd pounds entrusted to his care. Be all this as it may or might—the Club of Luminaries was founded in the year 1720; and the dynasty of Pifpaf was the thirteenth which had swayed the destinies of this powerful Association. Mr. Timothy Pifpaf, the gentleman whom we introduce to our readers in the year 1840, succeeded his father, Mr. Jacob Pifpaf, in his onerous, difficult, and honourable situation. Mr. Timothy Pifpaf was a retired pork- butcher, who had amassed a considerable fortune in the delicate task of submitting the flesh of swine to public competition, and who had acquired an honourable reputation in the exercise of his callmg. He had twice received the thanks of his fellow-citizens, in ward-mote assembled; once for having contributed a hundred guineas towards the district funds; and, on the second occasion, for having withdrawn from the contest in an election of an alderman, to make way for the more favoured candidate. Of these incidents in a man’s life, any one would have a right to be proud; but not a particle of the ridiculous sentiment of vain-glory was found lurking in the breast of Pifpaf! No—he never acted from selfish motives: he had devoted himself to the good of his country; and, although his patriotic exertions were principally confined to two streets and an alley, the inhabitants of which he represented in the common council, those exertions were not the less strenuous or praiseworthy. At the time when we introduce this remarkable man to our readers, he had attained his fifty-sixth year. He was about the middle height, and possessed all the outward characteristics of a powerful intellect. It was astonishing how his eyes sparkled after dinner, or at the club, when he solaced the severe duties of a public life with the private comfort of hot brandy-and-water. His forehead, too, was remarkably high, and, might have been denominated handsome, had not its regu- larity been somewhat defaced by the red blotches which covered it. His nose was large :—the detractors of Mr. Pifpaf (and who has not his enemies ?) declared that it was of the bottle species; and we are fain to admit that it certainly was somewhat bulbous. But this was of no consequence; for when its entire surface was illuminated with that bright glow, which could have been nothing else than the fire of Gomichbooks:.co