[Illustration]
_Containing some Particulars relative to the Double Knock, and
other Matters: among which certain Interesting Disclosures
relative to Mr. Snodgrass and a Young Lady are by no means
irrelevant to this History_
The object that presented itself to the eyes of the astonished clerk
was a boy--a wonderfully fat boy--habited as a serving lad, standing
upright on the mat, with his eyes closed as if in sleep. He had
never seen such a fat boy, in or out of a travelling caravan; and
this, coupled with the calmness and repose of his appearance, so
very different from what was reasonably to have been expected of the
inflictor of the knocks, smote him with wonder.
"What's the matter?" inquired the clerk.
The extraordinary boy replied not a word; but he nodded once, and
seemed, to the clerk's imagination, to snore feebly.
"Where do you come from?" inquired the clerk.
The boy made no sign. He breathed heavily, but in all other respects
was motionless.
The clerk repeated the question thrice, and receiving no answer,
prepared to shut the door, when the boy suddenly opened his eyes,
winked several times, sneezed once, and raised his hand as if to
repeat the knocking. Finding the door open, he stared about him with
astonishment, and at length fixed his eyes on Mr. Lowten's face.
"What the devil do you knock in that way for?" inquired the clerk,
angrily.
"Which way?" said the boy, in a slow and sleepy voice.
"Why, like forty hackney-coachmen," replied the clerk.
"Because master said I wasn't to leave off knocking till they opened
the door, for fear I should go to sleep," said the boy.
"Well," said the clerk, "what message have you brought?"
"He's down-stairs," rejoined the boy.
"Who?"
"Master. He wants to know whether you're at home."
Mr. Lowten bethought himself, at this juncture, of looking out of the
window. Seeing an open carriage with a hearty old gentleman in it,
looking up very anxiously, he ventured to beckon him; on which, the old
gentleman jumped out directly.
"That's your master in the carriage, I suppose?" said Lowten.
The boy nodded.
All further inquiries were superseded by the appearance of old Wardle,
who, running up-stairs and just recognising Lowten, passed at once into
Mr. Perker's room.
"Pickwick!" said the old gentleman. "Your hand, my boy! Why have I
never heard until the day before yesterday of your suffering yourself
to be cooped up in jail? And why did you let him do it, Perker?"
"I couldn't help it, my dear sir," replied Perker, with a smile and a
pinch of snuff: "you know how obstinate he is."
"Of course I do, of course I do," replied the old gentleman. "I am
heartily glad to see him, notwithstanding. I will not lose sight of him
again, in a hurry."
With these words, Wardle shook Mr. Pickwick's hand once more, and
having done the same by Perker, threw himself into an arm-chair, his
jolly red face shining again with smiles and health.
"Well!" said Wardle. "Here are pretty goings on--a pinch of your snuff,
Perker, my boy--never were such times, eh?"
"What do you mean?" inquired Mr. Pickwick.
"Mean!" replied Wardle. "Why, I think the girls are all running mad;
that's no news, you'll say? Perhaps it's not; but it's true, for all
that."
"You have not come up to London, of all places in the world, to tell us
_that_, my dear sir, have you?" inquired Perker.
"No, not altogether," replied Wardle; "though it was the main cause of
my coming. How's Arabella?"
"Very well," replied Mr. Pickwick, "and will be delighted to see you, I
am sure."
"Black-eyed little jilt!" replied Wardle, "I had a great idea of
marrying her myself, one of these odd days. But I am glad of it too,
very glad."
[Illustration: _His jolly red face shining with smiles and health_]
"How did the intelligence reach you?" asked Mr. Pickwick.
"Oh, it came to my girls, of course," replied Wardle. "Arabella wrote,
the day before yesterday, to say she had made a stolen match without
her husband's father's consent, and so you had gone down to get it when
his refusing it couldn't prevent the match, and all the rest of it. I
thought it a very good time to say something serious to _my_ girls;
so I said what a dreadful thing it was that children should marry
without their parents' consent, and so forth; but, bless your hearts, I
couldn't make the least impression upon them. They thought it such a
much more dreadful thing that there should have been a wedding without
bridesmaids, that I might as well have preached to Joe himself."
Here the old gentleman stopped to laugh; and having done so, to his
heart's content, presently resumed.
"But this is not the best of it, it seems. This is only half the
love-making and plotting that have been going forward. We have been
walking on mines for the last six months, and they're sprung at last."
"What do you mean?" exclaimed Mr. Pickwick, turning pale; "no other
secret marriage, I hope?"
"No, no," replied old Wardle; "not so bad as that; no."
"What then?" inquired Mr. Pickwick; "am I interested in it?"
"Shall I answer that question, Perker?" said Wardle.
"If you don't commit yourself by doing so, my dear sir."
"Well then, you are," said Wardle.
"How?" asked Mr. Pickwick, anxiously. "In what way?"
"Really," replied Wardle, "you're such a fiery sort of young fellow
that I am almost afraid to tell you; but, however, if Perker will sit
between us to prevent mischief, I'll venture."
Having closed the room-door, and fortified himself with another
application to Perker's snuff-box, the old gentleman proceeded with his
great disclosure in these words.
"The fact is, that my daughter Bella--Bella, who married young Trundle,
you know."
"Yes, yes, we know," said Mr. Pickwick, impatiently.
"Don't alarm me at the very beginning. My daughter Bella, Emily having
gone to bed with a headache after she had read Arabella's letter to
me, sat herself down by my side, the other evening, and began to talk
over this marriage affair. 'Well, pa,' she says, 'what do you think
of it?' 'Why, my dear,' I said, 'I suppose it's all very well; I hope
it's for the best.' I answered in this way because I was sitting before
the fire at the time drinking my grog rather thoughtfully, and I knew
my throwing in an undecided word now and then, would induce her to
continue talking. Both my girls are pictures of their dear mother, and
as I grow old I like to sit with only them by me; for their voices
and looks carry me back to the happiest period of my life, and make
me, for the moment, as young as I used to be then, though not quite so
light-hearted. 'It's quite a marriage of affection, pa,' said Bella,
after a short silence. 'Yes, my dear,' said I, 'but such marriages do
not always turn out the happiest.'"
"I question that, mind!" interposed Mr. Pickwick, warmly.
"Very good," responded Wardle, "question anything you like when it's
your turn to speak, but don't interrupt me."
"I beg your pardon," said Mr. Pickwick.
"Granted," replied Wardle. "'I am sorry to hear you express your
opinion against marriages of affection, pa,' said Bella, colouring a
little. 'I was wrong; I ought not to have said so, my dear, either,'
said I, patting her cheek as kindly as a rough old fellow like me could
pat it, 'for your mother's was one, and so was yours.' 'It's not that
I meant, pa,' said Bella. 'The fact is, pa, I wanted to speak to you
about Emily.'"
Mr. Pickwick started.
"What's the matter now?" inquired Wardle, stopping in his narrative.
"Nothing," replied Mr. Pickwick. "Pray go on."
"I never could spin out a story," said Wardle, abruptly. "It must come
out sooner or later, and it'll save us all a great deal of time if it
comes at once. The long and the short of it is, then, that Bella at
last mustered up courage to tell me that Emily was very unhappy; that
she and your young friend Snodgrass had been in constant correspondence
and communication ever since last Christmas; that she had very
dutifully made up her mind to run away with him in laudable imitation
of her old friend and schoolfellow; but that having some compunctions
of conscience on the subject, inasmuch as I had always been rather
kindly disposed to both of them, they had thought it better in the
first instance to pay me the compliment of asking whether I would
have any objection to their being married in the usual matter-of-fact
manner. There now, Mr. Pickwick, if you can make it convenient to
reduce your eyes to their usual size again, and to let me hear what you
think we ought to do, I shall feel rather obliged to you!"
The testy manner in which the hearty old gentleman uttered this last
sentence was not wholly unwarranted; for Mr. Pickwick's face had
settled down into an expression of blank amazement and perplexity,
quite curious to behold.
"Snodgrass! Since last Christmas!" were the first broken words that
issued from the lips of the confounded gentleman.
"Since last Christmas," replied Wardle; "that's plain enough, and very
bad spectacles we must have worn, not to have discovered it before."
"I don't understand it," said Mr. Pickwick, ruminating; "I really
cannot understand it."
"It's easy enough to understand," replied the choleric old gentleman.
"If you had been a younger man, you would have been in the secret long
ago; and besides," added Wardle after a moment's hesitation, "the truth
is, that, knowing nothing of this matter, I have rather pressed Emily
for four or five months past, to receive favourably (if she could; I
would never attempt to force a girl's inclinations) the addresses of
a young gentleman down in our neighbourhood. I have no doubt that,
girl-like, to enhance her own value and increase the ardour of Mr.
Snodgrass, she has represented this matter in very glowing colours, and
that they have both arrived at the conclusion that they are a terribly
persecuted pair of unfortunates, and have no resource but clandestine
matrimony or charcoal. Now the question is, what's to be done?"
"What have _you_ done?" inquired Mr. Pickwick.
"I?"
"I mean, what did you do when your married daughter told you this?"
"Oh, I made a fool of myself of course," rejoined Wardle.
"Just so," interposed Perker, who had accompanied this dialogue with
sundry twitchings of his watch-chain, vindictive rubbings of his nose,
and other symptoms of impatience. "That's very natural; but how?"
"I went into a great passion and frightened my mother into a fit," said
Wardle.
"That was judicious," remarked Perker; "and what else?"
"I fretted and fumed all next day, and raised a great disturbance,"
rejoined the old gentleman. "At last I got tired of rendering myself
unpleasant and making everybody miserable; so I hired a carriage at
Muggleton, and putting my own horses in it, came up to town, under
pretence of bringing Emily to see Arabella."
"Miss Wardle is with you, then?" said Mr. Pickwick.
"To be sure she is," replied Wardle. "She is at Osborne's hotel in the
Adelphi at this moment, unless your enterprising friend has run away
with her since I came out this morning."
"You are reconciled, then?" said Perker.
"Not a bit of it," answered Wardle; "she has been crying and moping
ever since, except last night, between tea and supper, when she made a
great parade of writing a letter that I pretended to take no notice of."
"You want my advice in this matter, I suppose?" said Perker, looking
from the musing face of Mr. Pickwick to the eager countenance of
Wardle, and taking several consecutive pinches of his favourite
stimulant.
"I suppose so," said Wardle, looking at Mr. Pickwick.
"Certainly," replied that gentleman.
"Well then," said Perker, rising and pushing his chair back, "my advice
is, that you both walk away together, or ride away, or get away by some
means or other, for I'm tired of you, and just talk this matter over
between you. If you have not settled it by the next time I see you,
I'll tell you what to do."
"This is satisfactory," said Wardle, hardly knowing whether to smile or
be offended.
"Pooh, pooh, my dear sir," returned Perker. "I know you both a great
deal better than you know yourselves. You have settled it already, to
all intents and purposes."
Thus expressing himself, the little gentleman poked his snuff-box,
first into the chest of Mr. Pickwick, and then into the waistcoat of
Mr. Wardle, upon which they all three laughed, but especially the
two last-named gentlemen, who at once shook hands again, without any
obvious or particular reason.
"You dine with me to-day," said Wardle to Perker, as he showed them
out.
"Can't promise, my dear sir, can't promise," replied Perker. "I'll look
in, in the evening, at all events."
"I shall expect you at five," said Wardle. "Now, Joe!" And Joe having
been at length awakened, the two friends departed in Mr. Wardle's
carriage, which in common humanity had a dickey behind for the fat boy,
who, if there had been a foot-board instead, would have rolled off and
killed himself in his very first nap.
Driving to the George and Vulture, they found that Arabella and her
maid had sent for a hackney-coach immediately on the receipt of a short
note from Emily announcing her arrival in town, and had proceeded
straight to the Adelphi. As Wardle had business to transact in the
city, they sent the carriage and the fat boy to his hotel, with the
information that he and Mr. Pickwick would return together for dinner
at five o'clock.
Charged with this message, the fat boy returned, slumbering as
peaceably in his dickey over the stones, as if it had been a down bed
on watch-springs. By some extraordinary miracle he awoke of his own
accord when the coach stopped, and giving himself a good shake to stir
up his faculties, went up-stairs to execute his commission.
Now whether the shake had jumbled the fat boy's faculties together,
instead of arranging them in proper order, or had roused such a
quantity of new ideas within him as to render him oblivious of
ordinary forms and ceremonies, or (which is also possible) had proved
unsuccessful in preventing his falling asleep as he ascended the
stairs, it is an undoubted fact that he walked into the sitting-room
without previously knocking at the door; and so beheld a gentleman with
his arms clasping his young mistress's waist, sitting very lovingly by
her side on a sofa, while Arabella and her pretty handmaid feigned to
be absorbed in looking out of a window at the other end of the room.
At sight of this phenomenon, the fat boy uttered an interjection, the
ladies a scream, and the gentleman an oath, almost simultaneously.
"Wretched creature, what do you want here?" said the gentleman, who it
is needless to say was Mr. Snodgrass.
To this the fat boy, considerably terrified, briefly responded,
"Missis."
"What do you want me for?" inquired Emily, turning her head aside, "you
stupid creature!"
"Master and Mr. Pickwick is a going to dine here at five," replied the
fat boy.
"Leave the room!" said Mr. Snodgrass, glaring upon the bewildered youth.
"No, no, no," added Emily hastily. "Bella, dear, advise me."
Upon this Emily and Mr. Snodgrass, and Arabella and Mary, crowded into
a corner, and conversed earnestly in whispers for some minutes, during
which the fat boy dozed.
"Joe," said Arabella, at length, looking round with a most bewitching
smile, "how do you do, Joe?"
"Joe," said Emily, "you're a very good boy; I won't forget you, Joe."
"Joe," said Mr. Snodgrass, advancing to the astonished youth, and
seizing his hand, "I didn't know you before. There's five shillings for
you, Joe!"
"I'll owe you five," said Arabella, "for old acquaintance' sake,
you know;" and another most captivating smile was bestowed upon the
corpulent intruder.
The fat boy's perception being slow, he looked rather puzzled at first
to account for this sudden prepossession in his favour, and stared
about him in a very alarming manner. At length his broad face began to
show symptoms of a grin of proportionately broad dimensions; and then,
thrusting half-a-crown into each of his pockets, and a hand and wrist
after it, he burst into a hoarse laugh: being for the first and only
time in his existence.
"He understands us, I see," said Arabella.
"He had better have something to eat, immediately," remarked Emily.
The fat boy almost laughed again when he heard this suggestion. Mary,
after a little more whispering, tripped forth from the group, and said:
"I am going to dine with you to-day, sir, if you have no objection."
"This way," said the fat boy, eagerly. "There is such a jolly
meat-pie!"
With these words, the fat boy led the way down-stairs; his pretty
companion captivating all the waiters and angering all the chambermaids
as she followed him to the eating-room.
There was the meat-pie of which the youth had spoken so feelingly, and
there were, moreover, a steak, and a dish of potatoes, and a pot of
porter.
"Sit down," said the fat boy. "Oh my eye, how prime! I am _so_ hungry."
Having apostrophised his eye, in a species of rapture, five or six
times, the youth took the head of the little table, and Mary seated
herself at the bottom.
"Will you have some of this?" said the fat boy, plunging into the pie
up to the very ferrules of the knife and fork.
"A little, if you please," replied Mary.
The fat boy assisted Mary to a little, and himself to a great deal, and
was just going to begin eating when he suddenly laid down his knife and
fork, leant forward in his chair, and letting his hands, with the knife
and fork in them, fall on his knees, said, very slowly:
"I say! How nice you look!"
This was said in an admiring manner, and was, so far, gratifying; but
still there was enough of the cannibal in the young gentleman's eyes to
render the compliment a double one.
"Dear me, Joseph," said Mary, affecting to blush, "what do you mean?"
The fat boy gradually recovering his former position, replied with a
heavy sigh, and remaining thoughtful for a few moments, drank a long
draught of porter. Having achieved this feat he sighed again, and
applied himself assiduously to the pie.
"What a nice young lady Miss Emily is!" said Mary, after a long silence.
The fat boy had by this time finished the pie. He fixed his eyes on
Mary, and replied:
"I knows a nicerer."
"Indeed!" said Mary.
"Yes, indeed!" replied the fat boy, with unwonted vivacity.
"What's her name?" inquired Mary.
"What's yours?"
"Mary."
"So's hers," said the fat boy. "You're her." The boy grinned to add
point to the compliment, and put his eyes into something between a
squint and a cast, which there is reason to believe he intended for an
ogle.
"You mustn't talk to me in that way," said Mary; "you don't mean it."
"Don't I, though?" replied the fat boy; "I say!"
"Well?"
"Are you going to come here regular?"
"No," rejoined Mary, shaking her head, "I'm going away to-night. Why?"
"Oh!" said the fat boy in a tone of strong feeling; "how we should have
enjoyed ourselves at meals, if you had been!"
"I might come here sometimes perhaps, to see you," said Mary, plaiting
the table-cloth in assumed coyness, "if you would do me a favour."
The fat boy looked from the pie-dish to the steak, as if he thought a
favour must be in a manner connected with something to eat; and then
took out one of the half-crowns and glanced at it nervously.
"Don't you understand me?" said Mary, looking slyly in his fat face.
Again he looked at the half-crown, and said faintly, "No."
"The ladies want you not to say anything to the old gentleman about the
young gentleman having been up-stairs; and I want you too."
"Is that all?" said the fat boy, evidently very much relieved as he
pocketed the half-crown again. "Of course I ain't a going to."
"You see," said Mary, "Mr. Snodgrass is very fond of Miss Emily, and
Miss Emily's very fond of him, and if you were to tell about it, the
old gentleman would carry you all away miles into the country, where
you'd see nobody."
"No, no, I won't tell," said the fat boy, stoutly.
"That's a dear," said Mary. "Now it's time I went up-stairs and got my
lady ready for dinner."
"Don't go yet," urged the fat boy.
"I must," replied Mary. "Good-bye, for the present."
The fat boy, with elephantine playfulness, stretched out his arms to
ravish a kiss; but as it required no great agility to elude him, his
fair enslaver had vanished before he closed them again; upon which
the apathetic youth ate a pound or so of steak with a sentimental
countenance, and fell fast asleep.
There was so much to say up-stairs, and there were so many plans
to concert for elopement and matrimony in the event of old Wardle
continuing to be cruel, that it wanted only half an hour of dinner when
Mr. Snodgrass took his final adieu. The ladies ran to Emily's bedroom
to dress, and the lover, taking up his hat, walked out of the room.
He had scarcely got outside the door, when he heard Wardle's voice
talking loudly, and looking over the banisters, beheld him, followed
by some other gentlemen, coming straight up-stairs. Knowing nothing of
the house, Mr. Snodgrass in his confusion stepped hastily back into
the room he had just quitted, and passing from thence into an inner
apartment (Mr. Wardle's bed-chamber), closed the door softly, just as
the persons he had caught a glimpse of entered the sitting-room. These
were Mr. Wardle, Mr. Pickwick, Mr. Nathaniel Winkle, and Mr. Benjamin
Allen, whom he had no difficulty in recognising by their voices.
"Very lucky I had the presence of mind to avoid them," thought Mr.
Snodgrass with a smile, and walking on tiptoe to another door near the
bedside; "this opens into the same passage, and I can walk quietly and
comfortably away."
There was only one obstacle to his walking quietly and comfortably
away, which was that the door was locked and the key gone.
"Let us have some of your best wine to-day, waiter," said old Wardle,
rubbing his hands.
"You shall have some of the very best, sir," replied the waiter.
"Let the ladies know we have come in."
"Yes, sir."
Devoutly and ardently did Mr. Snodgrass wish that the ladies could
know _he_ had come in. He ventured once to whisper "Waiter!" through
the keyhole, but as the probability of the wrong waiter coming to his
relief flashed upon his mind, together with a sense of the strong
resemblance between his own situation and that in which another
gentleman had been recently found in a neighbouring hotel (an account
of whose misfortunes had appeared under the head of "Police" in that
morning's paper), he sat himself on a portmanteau, and trembled
violently.
"We won't wait a minute for Perker," said Wardle, looking at his watch;
"he is always exact. He will be here in time, if he means to come; and
if he does not, it's of no use waiting. Ha! Arabella!"
"My sister!" exclaimed Mr. Benjamin Allen, folding her in a most
romantic embrace.
"Oh, Ben dear, how you do smell of tobacco," said Arabella, rather
overcome by this mark of affection.
"Do I?" said Mr. Benjamin Allen. "Do I, Bella? Well, perhaps I do."
Perhaps he did; having just left a pleasant little smoking party of
twelve medical students, in a small back parlour with a large fire.
"But I am delighted to see you," said Mr. Ben Allen. "Bless you, Bella!"
"There," said Arabella, bending forward to kiss her brother; "don't
take hold of me again, Ben dear, because you tumble me so."
At this point of the reconciliation, Mr. Ben Allen allowed his feelings
and the cigars and porter to overcome him, and looked round upon the
beholders with damp spectacles.
"Is nothing to be said to me?" cried Wardle with open arms.
"A great deal," whispered Arabella, as she received the old gentleman's
hearty caress and congratulation. "You are a hard-hearted, unfeeling,
cruel monster!"
"You are a little rebel," replied Wardle in the same tone, "and I am
afraid I shall be obliged to forbid you the house. People like you,
who get married in spite of everybody, ought not to be let loose on
society. But come!" added the old gentleman, aloud, "here's the dinner,
you shall sit by me. Joe; why, damn the boy, he's awake!"
To the great distress of his master, the fat boy was indeed in a state
of remarkable vigilance; his eyes being wide open, and looking as if
they intended to remain so. There was an alacrity in his manner, too,
which was equally unaccountable; every time his eyes met those of Emily
or Arabella, he smirked and grinned: once Wardle could have sworn he
saw him wink.
This alteration in the fat boy's demeanour originated in his increased
sense of his own importance, and the dignity he acquired from having
been taken into the confidence of the young ladies; and the smirks,
and grins, and winks, were so many condescending assurances that they
might depend upon his fidelity. As these tokens were rather calculated
to awaken suspicion than to allay it, and were somewhat embarrassing
besides, they were occasionally answered by a frown or shake of the
head from Arabella, which the fat boy considering as hints to be on his
guard, expressed his perfect understanding of, by smirking, grinning,
and winking, with redoubled assiduity.
"Joe," said Mr. Wardle, after an unsuccessful search in all his
pockets, "is my snuff-box on the sofa?"
"No, sir," replied the fat boy.
"Oh, I recollect; I left it on my dressing-table this morning," said
Wardle. "Run into the next room and fetch it."
The fat boy went into the next room; and having been absent about a
minute, returned with the snuff-box, and the palest face that ever a
fat boy wore.
"What's the matter with the boy!" exclaimed Wardle.
"Nothen's the matter with me," replied Joe, nervously.
"Have you been seeing any spirits?" inquired the old gentleman.
"Or taking any?" added Ben Allen.
"I think you're right," whispered Wardle, across the table. "He is
intoxicated, I'm sure."
Ben Allen replied that he thought he was; and as that gentleman had
seen a vast deal of the disease in question, Wardle was confirmed in an
impression which had been hovering about his mind for half an hour, and
at once arrived at the conclusion that the fat boy was drunk.
"Just keep your eye upon him for a few minutes," murmured Wardle. "We
shall soon find out whether he is or not."
The unfortunate youth had only interchanged a dozen words with Mr.
Snodgrass: that gentleman having implored him to make a private appeal
to some friend to release him, and then pushed him out with the
snuff-box, lest his prolonged absence should lead to a discovery. He
ruminated a little with a most disturbed expression of face, and left
the room in search of Mary.
But Mary had gone home after dressing her mistress, and the fat boy
came back again more disturbed than before.
Wardle and Mr. Ben Allen exchanged glances.
"Joe!" said Wardle.
"Yes, sir."
"What did you go away for?"
The fat boy looked hopelessly in the face of everybody at table and
stammered out that he didn't know.
"Oh," said Wardle, "you don't know, eh? Take this cheese to Mr.
Pickwick."
Now, Mr. Pickwick being in the very best health and spirits, had
been making himself perfectly delightful all dinner-time, and was at
this moment engaged in an energetic conversation with Emily and Mr.
Winkle: bowing his head, courteously, in the emphasis of his discourse,
gently waving his left hand to lend force to his observations, and all
glowing with placid smiles. He took a piece of cheese from the plate,
and was on the point of turning round to renew the conversation, when
the fat boy, stooping so as to bring his head on a level with that of
Mr. Pickwick, pointed with his thumb over his shoulder, and made the
most horrible and hideous face that was ever seen out of a Christmas
pantomime.
[Illustration: _Pointed with his thumb over his shoulder_]
"Dear me!" said Mr. Pickwick, starting, "what a very--eh?" He stopped,
for the fat boy had drawn himself up, and was, or pretended to be, fast
asleep.
"What's the matter?" inquired Wardle.
"This is such an extremely singular lad!" replied Mr. Pickwick, looking
uneasily at the boy. "It seems an odd thing to say, but upon my word I
am afraid that, at times, he is a little deranged."
"Oh! Mr. Pickwick, pray don't say so," cried Emily and Arabella, both
at once.
"I am not certain, of course," said Mr. Pickwick, amidst profound
silence, and looks of general dismay; "but his manner to me this moment
was really very alarming. Oh!" ejaculated Mr. Pickwick, suddenly
jumping up with a short scream. "I beg your pardon, ladies, but at that
moment he ran some sharp instrument into my leg. Really he is not safe."
"He's drunk," roared old Wardle, passionately. "Ring the bell! Call the
waiters! He's drunk."
"I ain't," said the fat boy, falling on his knees as his master seized
him by the collar. "I ain't drunk."
"Then you're mad; that's worse. Call the waiters," said the old
gentleman.
"I ain't mad; I'm sensible," rejoined the fat boy, beginning to cry.
"Then, what the devil do you run sharp instruments into Mr. Pickwick's
legs for?" inquired Wardle, angrily.
"He wouldn't look at me," replied the boy. "I wanted to speak to him."
"What did you want to say?" asked half a dozen voices at once.
The fat boy gasped, looked at the bedroom door, gasped again, and wiped
two tears away with the knuckle of each of his forefingers.
"What did you want to say?" demanded Wardle, shaking him.
"Stop!" said Mr. Pickwick; "allow me. What did you wish to communicate
to me, my poor boy?"
"I want to whisper to you," replied the fat boy.
"You want to bite his ear off, I suppose," said Wardle. "Don't come
near him; he's vicious; ring the bell and let him be taken down-stairs."
Just as Mr. Winkle caught the bell rope in his hand, it was arrested
by a general expression of astonishment; the captive lover, his face
burning with confusion, suddenly walked in from the bedroom, and made a
comprehensive bow to the company.
"Hallo!" cried Wardle, releasing the fat boy's collar, and staggering
back. "What's this!"
"I have been concealed in the next room, sir, since you returned,"
explained Mr. Snodgrass.
"Emily, my girl," said Wardle, reproachfully, "I detest meanness and
deceit; this is unjustifiable and indelicate in the highest degree. I
don't deserve this at your hands, Emily, indeed!"
"Dear papa," said Emily, "Arabella knows--everybody here knows--Joe
knows--that I was no party to this concealment. Augustus, for Heaven's
sake, explain it!"
Mr. Snodgrass, who had only waited for a hearing, at once recounted how
he had been placed in his then distressing predicament; how the fear of
giving rise to domestic dissensions had alone prompted him to avoid Mr.
Wardle on his entrance; how he merely meant to depart by another door,
but, finding it locked, had been compelled to stay against his will.
It was a painful situation to be placed in; but he now regretted it
the less, inasmuch as it afforded him an opportunity of acknowledging,
before their mutual friends, that he loved Mr. Wardle's daughter,
deeply and sincerely; that he was proud to avow that the feeling was
mutual; and that if thousands of miles were placed between them, or
oceans rolled their waters, he could never for an instant forget those
happy days, when first--and so on.
Having delivered himself to this effect, Mr. Snodgrass bowed again,
looked into the crown of his hat, and stepped towards the door.
"Stop!" shouted Wardle. "Why in the name of all that's----"
"Inflammable," mildly suggested Mr. Pickwick, who thought something
worse was coming.
"Well--that's inflammable," said Wardle, adopting the substitute,
"couldn't you say all this to me in the first instance?"
"Or confide in me?" added Mr. Pickwick.
"Dear, dear," said Arabella, taking up the defence, "what is the use
of asking all that now, especially when you know you had set your
covetous old heart on a richer son-in-law, and are so wild and fierce
besides, that everybody is afraid of you, except me. Shake hands with
him, and order him some dinner, for goodness gracious sake, for he
looks half-starved; and pray have your wine up at once, for you'll not
be tolerable until you have taken two bottles at least."
The worthy old gentleman pulled Arabella's ear, kissed her without the
smallest scruple, kissed his daughter also with great affection, and
shook Mr. Snodgrass warmly by the hand.
"She is right on one point at all events," said the old gentleman,
cheerfully. "Ring for the wine!"
The wine came, and Perker came up-stairs at the same moment. Mr.
Snodgrass had dinner at a side table, and, when he had despatched it,
drew his chair next Emily, without the smallest opposition on the old
gentleman's part.
The evening was excellent. Little Mr. Perker came out wonderfully,
told various comic stories, and sang a serious song which was almost
as funny as the anecdotes. Arabella was very charming, Mr. Wardle very
jovial, Mr. Pickwick very harmonious, Mr. Ben Allen very uproarious,
the lovers very silent, Mr. Winkle very talkative, and all of them very
happy.