[Illustration]
_How Mr. Winkle, when he stepped out of the Frying-Pan, walked gently
and comfortably into the Fire_
The ill-starred gentleman who had been the unfortunate cause of the
unusual noise and disturbance which alarmed the inhabitants of the
Royal Crescent in manner and form already described, after passing a
night of great confusion and anxiety, left the roof beneath which his
friends still slumbered, bound he knew not whither. The excellent and
considerate feelings which prompted Mr. Winkle to take this step can
never be too highly appreciated or too warmly extolled. "If," reasoned
Mr. Winkle with himself, "if this Dowler attempts (as I have no doubt
he will) to carry into execution his threat of personal violence
against myself, it will be incumbent on me to call him out. He has a
wife; that wife is attached to and dependent on him. Heavens! If I
should kill him in the blindness of my wrath, what would be my feelings
ever afterwards!" This painful consideration operated so powerfully on
the feelings of the humane young man, as to cause his knees to knock
together, and his countenance to exhibit alarming manifestations of
inward emotion. Impelled by such reflections, he grasped his carpet
bag, and creeping stealthily down-stairs, shut the detestable street
door with as little noise as possible, and walked off. Bending his
steps towards the Royal Hotel, he found a coach on the point of
starting for Bristol, and, thinking Bristol as good a place for his
purpose as any other he could go to, he mounted the box, and reached
the place of destination in such time as the pair of horses, who went
the whole stage and back again twice a day or more, could be reasonably
supposed to arrive there.
He took up his quarters at The Bush, and, designing to postpone any
communication by letter with Mr. Pickwick until it was probable that
Mr. Dowler's wrath might have in some degree evaporated, walked forth
to view the city, which struck him as being a shade more dirty than
any place he had ever seen. Having inspected the docks and shipping,
and viewed the cathedral, he inquired his way to Clifton, and being
directed thither, took the route which was pointed out to him. But, as
the pavements of Bristol are not the widest or cleanest upon earth, so
its streets are not altogether the straightest or least intricate; Mr.
Winkle being greatly puzzled by their manifold windings and twistings,
looked about him for a decent shop, in which he could apply afresh for
counsel and instruction.
His eyes fell upon a newly-painted tenement which had been recently
converted into something between a shop and a private house, and which
a red lamp, projecting over the fanlight of the street-door, would have
sufficiently announced as the residence of a medical practitioner,
even if the word "Surgery" had not been inscribed in golden characters
on a wainscot ground, above the window of what, in times bygone, had
been the front parlour. Thinking this an eligible place wherein to
make his inquiries, Mr. Winkle stepped into the little shop where the
gilt-labelled drawers and bottles were; and finding nobody there,
knocked with a half-crown on the counter, to attract the attention of
anybody who might happen to be in the back parlour, which he judged to
be the innermost and peculiar sanctum of the establishment, from the
repetition of the word "Surgery" on the door--painted in white letters
this time, by way of taking off the monotony.
At the first knock, a sound, as of persons fencing with fire-irons,
which had until now been very audible, suddenly ceased; at the second,
a studious-looking young gentleman in green spectacles, with a very
large book in his hand, glided quietly into the shop, and stepping
behind the counter, requested to know the visitor's pleasure.
"I am sorry to trouble you, sir," said Mr. Winkle, "but will you have
the goodness to direct me to----"
"Ha! ha! ha!" roared the studious young gentleman, throwing the large
book up into the air, and catching it with great dexterity at the very
moment when it threatened to smash to atoms all the bottles on the
counter. "Here's a start!"
There was, without a doubt; for Mr. Winkle was so very much astonished
at the extraordinary behaviour of the medical gentleman, that he
involuntarily retreated towards the door, and looked very much
disturbed at this strange reception.
"What, don't you know me?" said the medical gentleman.
Mr. Winkle murmured, in reply, that he had not that pleasure.
"Why, then," said the medical gentleman, "there are hopes for me yet;
I may attend half the old women in Bristol if I've decent luck. Get
out, you mouldy old villain, get out!" With this adjuration, which was
addressed to the large book, the medical gentleman kicked the volume
with remarkable agility to the further end of the shop, and, pulling
off his green spectacles, grinned the identical grin of Robert Sawyer,
Esquire, formerly of Guy's Hospital in the Borough, with a private
residence in Lant Street.
"You don't mean to say you weren't down upon me!" said Mr. Bob Sawyer,
shaking Mr. Winkle's hand with friendly warmth.
"Upon my word I was not," replied Mr. Winkle, returning the pressure.
"I wonder you didn't see the name," said Bob Sawyer, calling his
friend's attention to the outer door, on which, in the same white
paint, were traced the words, "Sawyer, late Nockemorf."
"It never caught my eye," returned Mr. Winkle.
"Lord, if I had known who you were, I should have rushed out, and
caught you in my arms," said Bob Sawyer; "but upon my life, I thought
you were the King's-taxes."
"No!" said Mr. Winkle.
"I did, indeed," responded Bob Sawyer, "and I was just going to say
that I wasn't at home, but if you'd leave a message I'd be sure to
give it to myself; for he don't know me; no more does the Lighting
and Paving. I think the Church-rates guesses who I am, and I know the
Water-works does, because I drew a tooth of his when I first came down
here. But come in, come in!" Chattering in this way, Mr. Bob Sawyer
pushed Mr. Winkle into the back room, where, amusing himself by boring
little circular caverns in the chimney-piece with a red-hot poker, sat
no less a person than Mr. Benjamin Allen.
"Well!" said Mr. Winkle. "This is indeed a pleasure I did not expect.
What a very nice place you have here!"
"Pretty well, pretty well," replied Bob Sawyer. "I _passed_ soon
after the precious party, and my friends came down with the needful
for this business; so I put on a black suit of clothes, and a pair of
spectacles, and came here to look as solemn as I could."
"And a very snug little business you have, no doubt?" said Mr. Winkle,
knowingly.
"Very," replied Bob Sawyer. "So snug, that at the end of a few years
you might put all the profits in a wine-glass, and cover 'em over with
a gooseberry leaf."
"You cannot surely mean that?" said Mr. Winkle. "The stock itself----"
"Dummies, my dear boy," said Bob Sawyer; "half the drawers have nothing
in 'em, and the other half don't open."
"Nonsense!" said Mr. Winkle.
"Fact--honour!" returned Bob Sawyer, stepping out into the shop, and
demonstrating the veracity of the assertion by divers hard pulls at the
little gilt knobs on the counterfeit drawers. "Hardly anything real in
the shop but the leeches, and _they_ are second-hand."
"I shouldn't have thought it!" exclaimed Mr. Winkle, much surprised.
"I hope not," replied Bob Sawyer, "else where's the use of appearances,
eh? But what will you take? Do as we do? That's right. Ben, my fine
fellow, put your hand into the cupboard, and bring out the patent
digester."
Mr. Benjamin Allen smiled his readiness, and produced from the closet
at his elbow a black bottle half full of brandy.
"You don't take water, of course?" said Bob Sawyer.
"Thank you," replied Mr. Winkle. "It's rather early. I should like to
qualify it, if you have no objection."
"None in the least, if you can reconcile it to your conscience,"
replied Bob Sawyer; tossing off, as he spoke, a glass of the liquor
with great relish. "Ben, the pipkin!"
Mr. Benjamin Allen drew forth, from the same hiding-place, a small
brass pipkin, which Bob Sawyer observed he prided himself upon
particularly, because it looked so business-like. The water in the
professional pipkin having been made to boil, in course of time, by
various little shovelsful of coal, which Mr. Bob Sawyer took out of a
practicable window-seat, labelled "Soda Water," Mr. Winkle adulterated
his brandy; and the conversation was becoming general, when it was
interrupted by the entrance into the shop of a boy, in a sober grey
livery and a gold-laced hat, with a small covered basket under his arm:
whom Mr. Bob Sawyer immediately hailed with, "Tom, you vagabond, come
here."
The boy presented himself accordingly.
"You've been stopping to over all the posts in Bristol, you idle young
scamp!" said Mr. Bob Sawyer.
"No, sir, I haven't," replied the boy.
"You had better not!" said Mr. Bob Sawyer, with a threatening aspect.
"Who do you suppose will ever employ a professional man, when they see
his boy playing at marbles in the gutter, or flying the garter in the
horse-road? Have you no feeling for your profession, you groveller? Did
you leave all the medicine?"
"Yes, sir."
"The powders for the child, at the large house with the new family,
and the pills to be taken four times a day at the ill-tempered old
gentleman's with the gouty leg?"
"Yes, sir."
"Then shut the door, and mind the shop."
"Come," said Mr. Winkle, as the boy retired, "things are not quite so
bad as you would have me believe, either. There is _some_ medicine to
be sent out."
Mr. Bob Sawyer peeped out the shop to see that no stranger was within
hearing, and leaning forward to Mr. Winkle, said, in a low tone:
"He leaves it all at the wrong houses."
Mr. Winkle looked perplexed, and Bob Sawyer and his friend laughed.
[Illustration: "_You've been stopping to over all the posts in
Bristol_"]
"Don't you see?" said Bob. "He goes up to a house, rings the area bell,
pokes a packet of medicine without a direction into the servant's hand,
and walks off. Servant takes it into the dining-parlour; master open
it, and reads the label: 'Draught to be taken at bed-time--pills as
before--lotion as usual--_the_ powder. From Sawyer's, late Nockemorf's.
Physicians' prescriptions carefully prepared,' and all the rest of
it. Shows it to his wife--_she_ reads the label; it goes down to the
servants--_they_ read the label. Next day, boy calls: 'Very sorry--his
mistake--immense business--great many parcels to deliver--Mr. Sawyer's
compliments--late Nockemorf.' The name gets known, and that's the
thing, my boy, in the medical way. Bless your heart, old fellow,
it's better than all the advertising in the world. We have got one
four-ounce bottle that's been to half the houses in Bristol, and hasn't
done yet."
"Dear me, I see," observed Mr. Winkle; "what an excellent plan!"
"Oh, Ben and I have hit upon a dozen such," replied Bob Sawyer with
great glee. "The lamplighter has eighteenpence a week to pull the
night-bell for ten minutes every time he comes round; and my boy always
rushes into church, just before the psalms, when the people have got
nothing to do but look about 'em, and calls me out, with horror and
dismay depicted on his countenance. 'Bless my soul,' everybody says,
'somebody taken suddenly ill! Sawyer, late Nockemorf, sent for. What a
business that young man has!'"
At the termination of this disclosure of some of the mysteries of
medicine, Mr. Bob Sawyer and his friend, Ben Allen, threw themselves
back in their respective chairs, and laughed boisterously. When they
had enjoyed the joke to their hearts' content, the discourse changed to
topics in which Mr. Winkle was more immediately interested.
We think we have hinted elsewhere, that Mr. Benjamin Allen had a way
of becoming sentimental after brandy. The case is not a peculiar one,
as we ourselves can testify: having, on a few occasions, had to deal
with patients who have been afflicted in a similar manner. At this
precise period of his existence, Mr. Benjamin Allen had perhaps a
greater predisposition to maudlinism than he had ever known before;
the cause of which malady was briefly this. He had been staying nearly
three weeks with Mr. Bob Sawyer; Mr. Bob Sawyer was not remarkable
for temperance, nor was Mr. Benjamin Allen for the ownership of a
very strong head; the consequence was, that, during the whole space
of time just mentioned, Mr. Benjamin Allen had been wavering between
intoxication partial, and intoxication complete.
"My dear friend," said Mr. Ben Allen, taking advantage of Mr. Bob
Sawyer's temporary absence behind the counter, whither he had retired
to dispense some of the second-hand leeches, previously referred to:
"my dear friend, I am very miserable."
Mr. Winkle professed his heartfelt regret to hear it, and begged to
know whether he could do anything to alleviate the sorrows of the
suffering student.
"Nothing, my dear boy, nothing," said Ben. "You recollect Arabella,
Winkle? My sister Arabella--a little girl, Winkle, with black
eyes--when we were down at Wardle's? I don't know whether you happened
to notice her, a nice little girl, Winkle. Perhaps my features may
recall her countenance to your recollection?"
Mr. Winkle required nothing to recall the charming Arabella to his
mind; and it was rather fortunate he did not, for the features of her
brother Benjamin would unquestionably have proved but an indifferent
refresher to his memory. He answered, with as much calmness as he could
assume, that he perfectly remembered the young lady referred to, and
sincerely trusted she was in good health.
"Our friend Bob is a delightful fellow, Winkle," was the only reply of
Mr. Ben Allen.
"Very," said Mr. Winkle; not much relishing the close connection of the
two names.
"I designed 'em for each other; they were made for each other, sent
into the world for each other, born for each other, Winkle," said Mr.
Ben Allen, setting down his glass with emphasis. "There's a special
destiny in the matter, my dear sir; there's only five years' difference
between 'em, and both their birthdays are in August."
Mr. Winkle was too anxious to hear what was to follow, to express
much wonderment at this extraordinary coincidence, marvellous as it
was; so Mr. Ben Allen, after a tear or two, went on to say, that,
notwithstanding all his esteem and respect and veneration for his
friend, Arabella had unaccountably and undutifully evinced the most
determined antipathy to his person.
"And I think," said Mr. Ben Allen, in conclusion, "_I_ think there's a
prior attachment."
"Have you any idea who the object of it might be?" asked Mr. Winkle,
with great trepidation.
Mr. Ben Allen seized the poker, flourished it in a warlike manner above
his head, inflicted a savage blow on an imaginary skull, and wound up
by saying, in a very expressive manner, that he only wished he could
guess; that was all.
"I'd show him what I thought of him," said Mr. Ben Allen. And round
went the poker again, more fiercely than before.
All this was, of course, very soothing to the feelings of Mr. Winkle,
who remained silent for a few minutes; but at length mustered up
resolution to inquire whether Miss Allen was in Kent.
"No, no," said Mr. Allen, laying aside the poker, and looking very
cunning; "I didn't think Wardle's exactly the place for a headstrong
girl; so, as I am her natural protector and guardian, our parents being
dead, I have brought her down into this part of the country, to spend a
few months at an old aunt's, in a nice dull close place. I think that
will cure her, my boy. If it doesn't, I'll take her abroad for a little
while, and see what that'll do."
"Oh, the aunt's is in Bristol, is it?" faltered Mr. Winkle.
"No, no, not in Bristol," replied Mr. Ben Allen, jerking his thumb over
his right shoulder; "over that way; down there. But hush! here's Bob.
Not a word, my dear friend, not a word."
Short as this conversation was, it roused in Mr. Winkle the highest
degree of excitement and anxiety. The suspected prior attachment
rankled in his heart. Could he be the object of it? Could it be for
him that the fair Arabella had looked scornfully on the sprightly Bob
Sawyer, or had he a successful rival? He determined to see her, cost
what it might; but here an insurmountable objection presented itself,
for whether the explanatory "over that way," and "down there," of Mr.
Ben Allen, meant three miles off, or thirty, or three hundred, he could
in no wise guess.
But he had no opportunity of pondering over his love just then, for
Bob Sawyer's return was the immediate precursor of the arrival of a
meat pie from the baker's, of which that gentleman insisted on his
staying to partake. The cloth was laid by an occasional charwoman,
who officiated in the capacity of Mr. Bob Sawyer's housekeeper; and a
third knife and fork having been borrowed from the mother of the boy
in the grey livery (for Mr. Sawyer's domestic arrangements were as yet
conducted on a limited scale), they sat down to dinner; the beer being
served up, as Mr. Sawyer remarked, "in its native pewter."
After dinner Mr. Bob Sawyer ordered in the largest mortar in the
shop, and proceeded to brew a reeking jorum of rum-punch therein:
stirring up and amalgamating the materials with a pestle in a very
creditable and apothecary-like manner. Mr. Sawyer, being a bachelor,
had only one tumbler in the house, which was assigned to Mr. Winkle as
a compliment to the visitor: Mr. Ben Allen being accommodated with a
funnel with a cork in the narrow end: and Bob Sawyer contented himself
with one of those wide-lipped crystal vessels inscribed with a variety
of cabalistic characters, in which chemists are wont to measure out
their liquid drugs in compounding prescriptions. These preliminaries
adjusted, the punch was tasted, and pronounced excellent; and it having
been arranged that Bob Sawyer and Ben Allen should be considered at
liberty to fill twice to Mr. Winkle's once, they started fair, with
great satisfaction and good-fellowship.
There was no singing, because Mr. Bob Sawyer said it wouldn't look
professional; but to make amends for this deprivation there was so much
talking and laughing that it might have been heard, and very likely
was, at the end of the street. Which conversation materially lightened
the hours and improved the mind of Mr. Bob Sawyer's boy, who instead of
devoting the evening to his ordinary occupation of writing his name on
the counter, and rubbing it out again, peeped through the glass door,
and thus listened and looked on at the same time.
The mirth of Mr. Bob Sawyer was rapidly ripening into the furious; Mr.
Ben Allen was fast relapsing into the sentimental, and the punch had
well-nigh disappeared altogether, when the boy hastily running in,
announced that a young woman had just come over, to say that Sawyer
late Nockemorf was wanted directly, a couple of streets off. This broke
up the party. Mr. Bob Sawyer understanding the message after some
twenty repetitions, tied a wet cloth round his head to sober himself,
and, having partially succeeded, put on his green spectacles and
issued forth. Resisting all entreaties to stay till he came back, and
finding it quite impossible to engage Mr. Ben Allen in any intelligible
conversation on the subject nearest his heart, or indeed on any other,
Mr. Winkle took his departure, and returned to The Bush.
The anxiety of his mind, and the numerous meditations which Arabella
had awakened, prevented his share of the mortar of punch producing that
effect upon him which it would have had, under other circumstances.
So, after taking a glass of soda-water and brandy at the bar, he
turned into the coffee-room, dispirited rather than elevated by the
occurrences of the evening.
Sitting in the front of the fire, with his back towards him, was a
tallish gentleman in a great-coat: the only other occupant of the
room. It was rather a cool evening for the season of the year, and the
gentleman drew his chair aside to afford the new comer a sight of the
fire. What were Mr. Winkle's feelings when, in doing so, he disclosed
to view the face and figure of the vindictive and sanguinary Dowler!
Mr. Winkle's first impulse was to give a violent pull at the nearest
bell-handle, but that unfortunately happened to be immediately behind
Mr. Dowler's head. He had made one step towards it, before he checked
himself. As he did so, Mr. Dowler very hastily drew back.
"Mr. Winkle, sir. Be calm. Don't strike me. I won't bear it. A blow!
Never!" said Mr. Dowler, looking meeker than Mr. Winkle had expected in
a gentleman of his ferocity.
"A blow, sir?" stammered Mr. Winkle.
"A blow, sir," replied Dowler. "Compose your feelings. Sit down. Hear
me."
"Sir," said Mr. Winkle, trembling from head to foot, "before I consent
to sit down beside, or opposite you, without the presence of a waiter,
I must be secured by some further understanding. You used a threat
against me last night, sir, a dreadful threat, sir." Here Mr. Winkle
turned very pale indeed, and stopped short.
"I did," said Dowler, with a countenance almost as white as Mr.
Winkle's. "Circumstances were suspicious. They have been explained. I
respect your bravery. Your feeling is upright. Conscious innocence.
There's my hand. Grasp it."
"Really, sir," said Mr. Winkle, hesitating whether to give his hand or
not, and almost fearing that it was demanded in order that he might be
taken at an advantage, "really sir, I----"
"I know what you mean," interposed Dowler. "You feel aggrieved. Very
natural. So should I. I was strong. I beg your pardon. Be friendly.
Forgive me." With this, Dowler fairly forced his hand upon Mr. Winkle,
and shaking it with the utmost vehemence, declared he was a fellow of
extreme spirit, and he had a higher opinion of him than ever.
"Now," said Dowler, "sit down. Relate it all. How did you find me? When
did you follow? Be frank. Tell me."
"It's quite accidental," replied Mr. Winkle, greatly perplexed by the
curious and unexpected nature of the interview, "quite."
"Glad of it," said Dowler. "I woke this morning. I had forgotten my
threat. I laughed at the accident. I felt friendly. I said so."
"To whom?" inquired Mr. Winkle.
"To Mrs. Dowler. 'You made a vow,' said she. 'I did,' said I. 'It was a
rash one,' said she. 'It was,' said I. 'I'll apologise. Where is he?'"
"Who?" inquired Mr. Winkle.
"You," replied Dowler. "I went down-stairs. You were not to be found.
Pickwick looked gloomy. Shook his head. Hoped no violence would be
committed. I saw it all. You felt yourself insulted. You had gone,
for a friend perhaps. Possibly for pistols. 'High spirit,' said I. 'I
admire him.'"
Mr. Winkle coughed, and beginning to see how the land lay, assumed a
look of importance.
"I left a note for you," resumed Dowler. "I said I was sorry. So I was.
Pressing business called me here. You were not satisfied. You followed.
You required a verbal explanation. You were right. It's all over now.
My business is finished. I go back to-morrow. Join me."
As Dowler progressed in his explanation, Mr. Winkle's countenance grew
more and more dignified. The mysterious nature of the commencement of
their conversation was explained; Mr. Dowler had as great an objection
to duelling as himself; in short, this blustering and awful personage
was one of the most egregious cowards in existence, and interpreting
Mr. Winkle's absence through the medium of his own fears, had taken the
same step as himself, and prudently retired until all excitement of
feeling should have subsided.
As the real state of the case dawned upon Mr. Winkle's mind, he looked
very terrible, and said he was perfectly satisfied; but, at the same
time, said so with an air that left Mr. Dowler no alternative but to
infer that if he had not been, something most horrible and destructive
must inevitably have occurred. Mr. Dowler appeared to be impressed with
a becoming sense of Mr. Winkle's magnanimity and condescension; and
the two belligerents parted for the night, with many protestations of
eternal friendship.
About half-past twelve o'clock, when Mr. Winkle had been revelling some
twenty minutes in the full luxury of his first sleep, he was suddenly
awakened by a loud knocking at his chamber door, which being repeated
with increased vehemence, caused him to start up in bed, and inquire
who was there, and what the matter was.
"Please, sir, here's a young man which says he must see you directly,"
responded the voice of the chambermaid.
"A young man!" exclaimed Mr. Winkle.
"No mistake about that 'ere, sir," replied another voice through the
keyhole; "and if that wery same interestin' young creetur ain't let
in vithout delay, it's wery possible as his legs vill enter afore his
countenance." The young man gave a gentle kick at one of the lower
panels of the door, after he had given utterance to this hint, as if to
add force and point to the remark.
"Is that you, Sam?" inquired Mr. Winkle, springing out of bed.
"Quite unpossible to identify any gen'l'm'n vith any degree o' mental
satisfaction, vithout lookin' at him, sir," replied the voice,
dogmatically.
Mr. Winkle, not much doubting who the young man was, unlocked the door;
which he had no sooner done, than Mr. Samuel Weller entered with great
precipitation, and carefully re-locking it on the inside, deliberately
put the key in his waistcoat pocket: and, after surveying Mr. Winkle
from head to foot, said:
"You're a wery humorous young gen'l'm'n, you air, sir!"
"What do you mean by this conduct, Sam?" inquired Mr. Winkle,
indignantly. "Get out, sir, this instant. What do you mean, sir?"
"What do _I_ mean," retorted Sam; "come, sir, this is rayther too rich,
as the young lady said, ven she remonstrated with the pastry-cook,
arter he'd sold her a pork-pie as had got nothin' but fat inside. What
do _I_ mean! Well, that ain't a bad un, that ain't."
"Unlock that door, and leave this room immediately, sir," said Mr.
Winkle.
"I shall leave this here room, sir, just precisely at the wery same
moment as you leaves it," responded Sam, speaking in a forcible manner,
and seating himself with perfect gravity. "If I find it necessary to
carry you away, pick-a-back, o' course I shall leave it the least bit
o' time possible afore you; but allow me to express a hope as you
won't reduce me to extremities; in saying vich, I merely quote wot
the nobleman said to the fractious pennywinkle, ven he vouldn't come
out of his shell by means of a pin, and he conseqvently began to be
afeared that he should be obliged to crack him in the parlour door."
At the end of this address, which was unusually lengthy for him, Mr.
Weller planted his hands on his knees, and looked full in Mr. Winkle's
face, with an expression of countenance that showed that he had not the
remotest intention of being trifled with.
"You're a amiably disposed young man, sir, I don't think," resumed
Mr. Weller, in a tone of moral reproof, "to go inwolving our precious
governor in all sorts o' fanteegs, ven he's made up his mind to go
through everythink for principle. You're far worse nor Dodson, sir; and
as for Fogg, I consider him a born angel to you!" Mr. Weller having
accompanied this last sentiment with an emphatic slap on each knee,
folded his arms with a look of great disgust, and threw himself back in
his chair, as if awaiting the criminal's defence.
"My good fellow," said Mr. Winkle, extending his hand; his teeth
chattering all the time he spoke, for he had been standing, during the
whole of Mr. Weller's lecture, in his night-gear; "my good fellow, I
respect your attachment to my excellent friend, and I am very sorry
indeed, to have added to his causes for disquiet. There, Sam, there!"
"Well," said Sam, rather sulkily, but giving the proffered hand a
respectful shake at the same time: "well, so you ought to be, and I am
very glad to find you air; for, if I can help it, I won't have him put
upon by nobody, and that's all about it."
"Certainly not, Sam," said Mr. Winkle. "There! Now go to bed, Sam, and
we'll talk further about this in the morning."
"I'm wery sorry," said Sam, "but I can't go to bed."
"Not go to bed!" repeated Mr. Winkle.
"No," said Sam, shaking his head. "Can't be done."
"You don't mean to say you're going back to-night, Sam?" urged Mr.
Winkle, greatly surprised.
"Not unless you particklerly wish it," replied Sam; "but mustn't leave
this here room. The governor's orders was peremptory."
"Nonsense, Sam," said Mr. Winkle, "I must stop here two or three days;
and more than that, Sam, you must stop here too, to assist me in
gaining an interview with a young lady--Miss Allen, Sam; you remember
her--whom I must and will see before I leave Bristol."
But in reply to each of these positions, Sam shook his head with great
firmness, and energetically replied, "It can't be done."
After a great deal of argument and representation on the part of Mr.
Winkle, however, and a full disclosure of what had passed in the
interview with Dowler, Sam began to waver; and at length a compromise
was effected, of which the following were the main and principal
conditions:
That Sam should retire, and leave Mr. Winkle in the undisturbed
possession of his apartment, on the condition that he had permission to
lock the door on the outside, and carry off the key; provided always,
that in the event of an alarm of fire, or other dangerous contingency,
the door should be instantly unlocked. That a letter should be
written to Mr. Pickwick early next morning, and forwarded per Dowler,
requesting his consent to Sam and Mr. Winkle's remaining at Bristol,
for the purpose, and with the object, already assigned, and begging
an answer by the next coach; if favourable, the aforesaid parties to
remain accordingly, and if not, to return to Bath immediately on the
receipt thereof. And, lastly, that Mr. Winkle should be understood as
distinctly pledging himself not to resort to the window, fireplace, or
other surreptitious mode of escape in the meanwhile. These stipulations
having been concluded, Sam locked the door and departed.
He had nearly got down-stairs, when he stopped, and drew the key from
his pocket.
"I quite forgot about the knockin' down," said Sam, half turning back.
"The governor distinctly said it was to be done. Amazin' stupid o' me,
that 'ere! Never mind," said Sam, brightening up, "it's easily done
to-morrow, anyvays."
Apparently much consoled by this reflection, Mr. Weller once more
deposited the key in his pocket, and descending the remainder of the
stairs without any fresh visitations of conscience, was soon, in common
with the other inmates of the house, buried in profound repose.