Milk Punch and Conviviality

I skim through Dickens's Pickwick Papers occasionally and then stop at parts which are so funny I have to laugh out loud. Chortle, choke, roll on the floor. One day, when I'm reading it I'll actually count how many passages relate to the bracing effects of alcohol. Bracing. Bracing. Happifying. (So it belongs here, no? if it's happifying?)

"Well that certainly is the most capital cold punch," said Mr Pickwick, looking earnestly at the stone bottle; "and the day is extremely warm, and - Tupman, my dear friend, a glass of punch?"

"With the greatest delight," replied Mr Tupman; and having drank the glass, Mr Pickwick took another, just to see whether there was any orange peel in the punch, because orange peel always disagreed with him; and finding that there was not, Mr Pickwick took another glass to the health of their absent friend, and then felt himself imperatively called upon to propose another in honour of the punch-compounder, unknown.

This constant succession of glasses produced considerable effect upon Mr Pickwick; his countenance beamed with the most sunny smiles, laughter played around his lips, and good-humoured merriment twinkled in his eyes. Yielding by degrees to the influence of the exciting liquid, rendered more so by the heat, Mr Pickwick expressed a strong desire to recollect a song which he had heard in his infancy, and the attempt proving abortive, sought to stimulate his memory with more glasses of punch, which appeared to have quite a contrary effect; for, from forgetting the words of the song, he began to forget how to articulate any words at all; and finally, after rising to his legs to address the company in an eloquent speech, he fell into the barrow, and fast asleep, simultaneously.