His head was stuck full of sable hearse-plumes, which he nodded
      to and fro with a jaunty and knowing air; and, in his right hand,
      he held a huge human thigh-bone, with which he appeared to have
      been just knocking down some member of the company for a song. Opposite him, and with her back to the door, was a lady of no
      whit the less extraordinary character. Although quite as tall as
      the person just described, she had no right to complain of his
      unnatural emaciation. She was evidently in the last stage of a
      dropsy; and her figure resembled nearly that of the huge puncheon
      of October beer which stood, with the head driven in, close by
      her side, in a corner of the chamber. Her face was exceedingly
      round, red, and full; and the same peculiarity, or rather want of
      peculiarity, attached itself to her countenance, which I before
      mentioned in the case of the president—that is to say, only one
      feature of her face was sufficiently distinguished to need a
      separate characterization: indeed the acute Tarpaulin immediately
      observed that the same remark might have applied to each
      individual person of the party; every one of whom seemed to
      possess a monopoly of some particular portion of physiognomy. With the lady in question this portion proved to be the mouth. Commencing at the right ear, it swept with a terrific chasm to
      the left—the short pendants which she wore in either auricle
      continually bobbing into the aperture. She made, however, every
      exertion to keep her mouth closed and look dignified, in a dress
      consisting of a newly starched and ironed shroud coming up close
      under her chin, with a crimpled ruffle of cambric muslin. At her right hand sat a diminutive young lady whom she appeared
      to patronise. This delicate little creature, in the trembling of
      her wasted fingers, in the livid hue of her lips, and in the
      slight hectic spot which tinged her otherwise leaden complexion,
      gave evident indications of a galloping consumption. An air of
      extreme _haut ton_, however, pervaded her whole appearance; she
      wore in a graceful and _dégagé_ manner, a large and beautiful
      winding-sheet of the finest India lawn; her hair hung in ringlets
      over her neck; a soft smile played about her mouth; but her nose,
      extremely long, thin, sinuous, flexible and pimpled, hung down
      far below her under lip, and in spite of the delicate manner in
      which she now and then moved it to one side or the other with her
      tongue, gave to her countenance a somewhat equivocal expression. Over against her, and upon the left of the dropsical lady, was
      seated a little puffy, wheezing, and gouty old man, whose cheeks
      reposed upon the shoulders of their owner, like two huge bladders
      of Oporto wine. With his arms folded, and with one bandaged leg
      deposited upon the table, he seemed to think himself entitled to
      some consideration. He evidently prided himself much upon every
      inch of his personal appearance, but took more especial delight
      in calling attention to his gaudy-colored surtout. This, to say
      the truth, must have cost him no little money, and was made to
      fit him exceedingly well—being fashioned from one of the
      curiously embroidered silken covers appertaining to those
      glorious escutcheons which, in England and elsewhere, are
      customarily hung up, in some conspicuous place, upon the
      dwellings of departed aristocracy. Next to him, and at the right hand of the president, was a
      gentleman in long white hose and cotton drawers. His frame shook,
      in a ridiculous manner, with a fit of what Tarpaulin called “the
      horrors.” His jaws, which had been newly shaved, were tightly
      tied up by a bandage of muslin; and his arms being fastened in a
      similar way at the wrists, prevented him from helping himself too
      freely to the liquors upon the table; a precaution rendered
      necessary, in the opinion of Legs, by the peculiarly sottish and
      wine-bibbing cast of his visage. A pair of prodigious ears,
      nevertheless, which it was no doubt found impossible to confine,
      towered away into the atmosphere of the apartment, and were
      occasionally pricked up in a spasm, at the sound of the drawing
      of a cork. Fronting him, sixthly and lastly, was situated a singularly
      stiff-looking personage, who, being afflicted with paralysis,
      must, to speak seriously, have felt very ill at ease in his
      unaccommodating habiliments. He was habited, somewhat uniquely,
      in a new and handsome mahogany coffin. Its top or head-piece
      pressed upon the skull of the wearer, and extended over it in the
      fashion of a hood, giving to the entire face an air of
      indescribable interest. Arm-holes had been cut in the sides, for
      the sake not more of elegance than of convenience; but the dress,
      nevertheless, prevented its proprietor from sitting as erect as
      his associates; and as he lay reclining against his tressel, at
      an angle of forty-five degrees, a pair of huge goggle eyes rolled
      up their awful whites towards the ceiling in absolute amazement
      at their own enormity. Before each of the party lay a portion of a skull, which was used
      as a drinking cup. Overhead was suspended a human skeleton, by
      means of a rope tied round one of the legs and fastened to a ring
      in the ceiling. The other limb, confined by no such fetter, stuck
      off from the body at right angles, causing the whole loose and
      rattling frame to dangle and twirl about at the caprice of every
      occasional puff of wind which found its way into the apartment. In the cranium of this hideous thing lay quantity of ignited
      charcoal, which threw a fitful but vivid light over the entire
      scene; while coffins, and other wares appertaining to the shop of
      an undertaker, were piled high up around the room, and against
      the windows, preventing any ray from escaping into the street. At sight of this extraordinary assembly, and of their still more
      extraordinary paraphernalia, our two seamen did not conduct
      themselves with that degree of decorum which might have been
      expected. Legs, leaning against the wall near which he happened
      to be standing, dropped his lower jaw still lower than usual, and
      spread open his eyes to their fullest extent: while Hugh
      Tarpaulin, stooping down so as to bring his nose upon a level
      with the table, and spreading out a palm upon either knee, burst
      into a long, loud, and obstreperous roar of very ill-timed and
      immoderate laughter.