‘They whirled past the dark trees, as feathers would be swept before a

hurricane. Houses, gates, churches, haystacks, objects of every kind

they shot by, with a velocity and noise like roaring waters suddenly let

loose. But still the noise of pursuit grew louder, and still my uncle

could hear the young lady wildly screaming, “Faster! Faster!”

‘My uncle plied whip and rein, and the horses flew onward till they were

white with foam; and yet the noise behind increased; and yet the young

lady cried, “Faster! Faster!” My uncle gave a loud stamp on the boot in

the energy of the moment, and--found that it was gray morning, and he

was sitting in the wheelwright’s yard, on the box of an old Edinburgh

mail, shivering with the cold and wet and stamping his feet to warm

them! He got down, and looked eagerly inside for the beautiful young

lady. Alas! There was neither door nor seat to the coach. It was a mere

shell.

‘Of course, my uncle knew very well that there was some mystery in the

matter, and that everything had passed exactly as he used to relate it.

He remained staunch to the great oath he had sworn to the beautiful

young lady, refusing several eligible landladies on her account, and

dying a bachelor at last. He always said what a curious thing it was

that he should have found out, by such a mere accident as his clambering

over the palings, that the ghosts of mail-coaches and horses, guards,

coachmen, and passengers, were in the habit of making journeys regularly

every night. He used to add, that he believed he was the only living

person who had ever been taken as a passenger on one of these

excursions. And I think he was right, gentlemen--at least I never heard

of any other.’

‘I wonder what these ghosts of mail-coaches carry in their bags,’ said

the landlord, who had listened to the whole story with profound

attention.

‘The dead letters, of course,’ said the bagman.

‘Oh, ah! To be sure,’ rejoined the landlord. ‘I never thought of that.’

CHAPTER L. HOW MR. PICKWICK SPED UPON HIS MISSION, AND HOW HE WAS

REINFORCED IN THE OUTSET BY A MOST UNEXPECTED AUXILIARY

The horses were put to, punctually at a quarter before nine next

morning, and Mr. Pickwick and Sam Weller having each taken his seat, the

one inside and the other out, the postillion was duly directed to repair

in the first instance to Mr. Bob Sawyer’s house, for the purpose of

taking up Mr. Benjamin Allen.

It was with feelings of no small astonishment, when the carriage drew up

before the door with the red lamp, and the very legible inscription of

‘Sawyer, late Nockemorf,’ that Mr. Pickwick saw, on popping his head out

of the coach window, the boy in the gray livery very busily employed in

putting up the shutters--the which, being an unusual and an

unbusinesslike proceeding at that hour of the morning, at once suggested

to his mind two inferences: the one, that some good friend and patient

of Mr. Bob Sawyer’s was dead; the other, that Mr. Bob Sawyer himself was

bankrupt.

‘What is the matter?’ said Mr. Pickwick to the boy.

‘Nothing’s the matter, Sir,’ replied the boy, expanding his mouth to the

whole breadth of his countenance.

‘All right, all right!’ cried Bob Sawyer, suddenly appearing at the

door, with a small leathern knapsack, limp and dirty, in one hand, and a

rough coat and shawl thrown over the other arm. ‘I’m going, old fellow.’

‘You!’ exclaimed Mr. Pickwick.

‘Yes,’ replied Bob Sawyer, ‘and a regular expedition we’ll make of it.

Here, Sam! Look out!’ Thus briefly bespeaking Mr. Weller’s attention,

Mr. Bob Sawyer jerked the leathern knapsack into the dickey, where it

was immediately stowed away, under the seat, by Sam, who regarded the

proceeding with great admiration. This done, Mr. Bob Sawyer, with the

assistance of the boy, forcibly worked himself into the rough coat,

which was a few sizes too small for him, and then advancing to the coach

window, thrust in his head, and laughed boisterously.

‘What a start it is, isn’t it?’ cried Bob, wiping the tears out of his

eyes, with one of the cuffs of the rough coat.

‘My dear Sir,’ said Mr. Pickwick, with some embarrassment, ‘I had no

idea of your accompanying us.’

‘No, that’s just the very thing,’ replied Bob, seizing Mr. Pickwick by

the lappel of his coat. ‘That’s the joke.’

‘Oh, that’s the joke, is it?’ said Mr. Pickwick.

‘Of course,’ replied Bob. ‘It’s the whole point of the thing, you know--

that, and leaving the business to take care of itself, as it seems to

have made up its mind not to take care of me.’ With this explanation of

the phenomenon of the shutters, Mr. Bob Sawyer pointed to the shop, and

relapsed into an ecstasy of mirth.

‘Bless me, you are surely not mad enough to think of leaving your

patients without anybody to attend them!’ remonstrated Mr. Pickwick in a

very serious tone.

‘Why not?’ asked Bob, in reply. ‘I shall save by it, you know. None of

them ever pay. Besides,’ said Bob, lowering his voice to a confidential

whisper, ‘they will be all the better for it; for, being nearly out of

drugs, and not able to increase my account just now, I should have been

obliged to give them calomel all round, and it would have been certain

to have disagreed with some of them. So it’s all for the best.’

There was a philosophy and a strength of reasoning about this reply,

which Mr. Pickwick was not prepared for. He paused a few moments, and

added, less firmly than before--

‘But this chaise, my young friend, will only hold two; and I am pledged

to Mr. Allen.’

‘Don’t think of me for a minute,’ replied Bob. ‘I’ve arranged it all;

Sam and I will share the dickey between us. Look here. This little bill

is to be wafered on the shop door: “Sawyer, late Nockemorf. Inquire of

Mrs. Cripps over the way.” Mrs. Cripps is my boy’s mother. “Mr. Sawyer’s

very sorry,” says Mrs. Cripps, “couldn’t help it--fetched away early

this morning to a consultation of the very first surgeons in the

country--couldn’t do without him--would have him at any price--

tremendous operation.” The fact is,’ said Bob, in conclusion, ‘it’ll do

me more good than otherwise, I expect. If it gets into one of the local

papers, it will be the making of me. Here’s Ben; now then, jump in!’

With these hurried words, Mr. Bob Sawyer pushed the postboy on one side,

jerked his friend into the vehicle, slammed the door, put up the steps,

wafered the bill on the street door, locked it, put the key in his

pocket, jumped into the dickey, gave the word for starting, and did the

whole with such extraordinary precipitation, that before Mr. Pickwick

had well begun to consider whether Mr. Bob Sawyer ought to go or not,

they were rolling away, with Mr. Bob Sawyer thoroughly established as

part and parcel of the equipage.

So long as their progress was confined to the streets of Bristol, the

facetious Bob kept his professional green spectacles on, and conducted

himself with becoming steadiness and gravity of demeanour; merely giving

utterance to divers verbal witticisms for the exclusive behoof and

entertainment of Mr. Samuel Weller. But when they emerged on the open

road, he threw off his green spectacles and his gravity together, and

performed a great variety of practical jokes, which were calculated to

attract the attention of the passersby, and to render the carriage and

those it contained objects of more than ordinary curiosity; the least

conspicuous among these feats being a most vociferous imitation of a

key-bugle, and the ostentatious display of a crimson silk pocket-

handkerchief attached to a walking-stick, which was occasionally waved

in the air with various gestures indicative of supremacy and defiance.

‘I wonder,’ said Mr. Pickwick, stopping in the midst of a most sedate

conversation with Ben Allen, bearing reference to the numerous good

qualities of Mr. Winkle and his sister--‘I wonder what all the people we

pass, can see in us to make them stare so.’

‘It’s a neat turn-out,’ replied Ben Allen, with something of pride in

his tone. ‘They’re not used to see this sort of thing, every day, I dare

say.’

‘Possibly,’ replied Mr. Pickwick. ‘It may be so. Perhaps it is.’

Mr. Pickwick might very probably have reasoned himself into the belief

that it really was, had he not, just then happening to look out of the

coach window, observed that the looks of the passengers betokened

anything but respectful astonishment, and that various telegraphic

communications appeared to be passing between them and some persons

outside the vehicle, whereupon it occurred to him that these

demonstrations might be, in some remote degree, referable to the

humorous deportment of Mr. Robert Sawyer.

‘I hope,’ said Mr. Pickwick, ‘that our volatile friend is committing no

absurdities in that dickey behind.’

‘Oh dear, no,’ replied Ben Allen. ‘Except when he’s elevated, Bob’s the

quietest creature breathing.’

Here a prolonged imitation of a key-bugle broke upon the ear, succeeded

by cheers and screams, all of which evidently proceeded from the throat

and lungs of the quietest creature breathing, or in plainer designation,

of Mr. Bob Sawyer himself.

Mr. Pickwick and Mr. Ben Allen looked expressively at each other, and

the former gentleman taking off his hat, and leaning out of the coach

window until nearly the whole of his waistcoat was outside it, was at

length enabled to catch a glimpse of his facetious friend.

Mr. Bob Sawyer was seated, not in the dickey, but on the roof of the

chaise, with his legs as far asunder as they would conveniently go,

wearing Mr. Samuel Weller’s hat on one side of his head, and bearing, in

one hand, a most enormous sandwich, while, in the other, he supported a

goodly-sized case-bottle, to both of which he applied himself with

intense relish, varying the monotony of the occupation by an occasional

howl, or the interchange of some lively badinage with any passing

stranger. The crimson flag was carefully tied in an erect position to

the rail of the dickey; and Mr. Samuel Weller, decorated with Bob

Sawyer’s hat, was seated in the centre thereof, discussing a twin

sandwich, with an animated countenance, the expression of which

betokened his entire and perfect approval of the whole arrangement.

This was enough to irritate a gentleman with Mr. Pickwick’s sense of

propriety, but it was not the whole extent of the aggravation, for a

stage-coach full, inside and out, was meeting them at the moment, and

the astonishment of the passengers was very palpably evinced. The

congratulations of an Irish family, too, who were keeping up with the

chaise, and begging all the time, were of rather a boisterous

description, especially those of its male head, who appeared to consider

the display as part and parcel of some political or other procession of

triumph.

‘Mr. Sawyer!’ cried Mr. Pickwick, in a state of great excitement, ‘Mr.

Sawyer, Sir!’

‘Hollo!’ responded that gentleman, looking over the side of the chaise

with all the coolness in life.

‘Are you mad, sir?’ demanded Mr. Pickwick.

‘Not a bit of it,’ replied Bob; ‘only cheerful.’

‘Cheerful, sir!’ ejaculated Mr. Pickwick. ‘Take down that scandalous red

handkerchief, I beg. I insist, Sir. Sam, take it down.’

Before Sam could interpose, Mr. Bob Sawyer gracefully struck his

colours, and having put them in his pocket, nodded in a courteous manner

to Mr. Pickwick, wiped the mouth of the case-bottle, and applied it to

his own, thereby informing him, without any unnecessary waste of words,

that he devoted that draught to wishing him all manner of happiness and

prosperity. Having done this, Bob replaced the cork with great care, and

looking benignantly down on Mr. Pickwick, took a large bite out of the

sandwich, and smiled.

‘Come,’ said Mr. Pickwick, whose momentary anger was not quite proof

against Bob’s immovable self-possession, ‘pray let us have no more of

this absurdity.’

‘No, no,’ replied Bob, once more exchanging hats with Mr. Weller; ‘I

didn’t mean to do it, only I got so enlivened with the ride that I

couldn’t help it.’

‘Think of the look of the thing,’ expostulated Mr. Pickwick; ‘have some

regard to appearances.’

‘Oh, certainly,’ said Bob, ‘it’s not the sort of thing at all. All over,

governor.’

Satisfied with this assurance, Mr. Pickwick once more drew his head into

the chaise and pulled up the glass; but he had scarcely resumed the

conversation which Mr. Bob Sawyer had interrupted, when he was somewhat

startled by the apparition of a small dark body, of an oblong form, on

the outside of the window, which gave sundry taps against it, as if

impatient of admission.

‘What’s this?’ exclaimed Mr. Pickwick.

‘It looks like a case-bottle;’ remarked Ben Allen, eyeing the object in

question through his spectacles with some interest; ‘I rather think it

belongs to Bob.’

The impression was perfectly accurate; for Mr. Bob Sawyer, having

attached the case-bottle to the end of the walking-stick, was battering

the window with it, in token of his wish, that his friends inside would

partake of its contents, in all good-fellowship and harmony.

‘What’s to be done?’ said Mr. Pickwick, looking at the bottle. ‘This

proceeding is more absurd than the other.’

‘I think it would be best to take it in,’ replied Mr. Ben Allen; ‘it

would serve him right to take it in and keep it, wouldn’t it?’

‘It would,’ said Mr. Pickwick; ‘shall I?’

‘I think it the most proper course we could possibly adopt,’ replied

Ben.

This advice quite coinciding with his own opinion, Mr. Pickwick gently

let down the window and disengaged the bottle from the stick; upon which

the latter was drawn up, and Mr. Bob Sawyer was heard to laugh heartily.

‘What a merry dog it is!’ said Mr. Pickwick, looking round at his

companion, with the bottle in his hand.

‘He is,’ said Mr. Allen.

‘You cannot possibly be angry with him,’ remarked Mr. Pickwick.

‘Quite out of the question,’ observed Benjamin Allen.

During this short interchange of sentiments, Mr. Pickwick had, in an

abstracted mood, uncorked the bottle.

‘What is it?’ inquired Ben Allen carelessly.

‘I don’t know,’ replied Mr. Pickwick, with equal carelessness. ‘It

smells, I think, like milk-punch.’

Oh, indeed?’ said Ben.

‘I _think _so,’ rejoined Mr. Pickwick, very properly guarding himself

against the possibility of stating an untruth; ‘mind, I could not

undertake to say certainly, without tasting it.’

‘You had better do so,’ said Ben; ‘we may as well know what it is.’

‘Do you think so?’ replied Mr. Pickwick. ‘Well; if you are curious to

know, of course I have no objection.’

Ever willing to sacrifice his own feelings to the wishes of his friend,

Mr. Pickwick at once took a pretty long taste.

‘What is it?’ inquired Ben Allen, interrupting him with some impatience.

‘Curious,’ said Mr. Pickwick, smacking his lips, ‘I hardly know, now.

Oh, yes!’ said Mr. Pickwick, after a second taste. ‘It _is_ punch.’

Mr. Ben Allen looked at Mr. Pickwick; Mr. Pickwick looked at Mr. Ben

Allen; Mr. Ben Allen smiled; Mr. Pickwick did not.

‘It would serve him right,’ said the last-named gentleman, with some

severity--‘it would serve him right to drink it every drop.’

‘The very thing that occurred to me,’ said Ben Allen.

‘Is it, indeed?’ rejoined Mr. Pickwick. ‘Then here’s his health!’ With

these words, that excellent person took a most energetic pull at the

bottle, and handed it to Ben Allen, who was not slow to imitate his

example. The smiles became mutual, and the milk-punch was gradually and

cheerfully disposed of.

‘After all,’ said Mr. Pickwick, as he drained the last drop, ‘his pranks

are really very amusing; very entertaining indeed.’

‘You may say that,’ rejoined Mr. Ben Allen. In proof of Bob Sawyer’s

being one of the funniest fellows alive, he proceeded to entertain Mr.

Pickwick with a long and circumstantial account how that gentleman once

drank himself into a fever and got his head shaved; the relation of

which pleasant and agreeable history was only stopped by the stoppage of

the chaise at the Bell at Berkeley Heath, to change horses.

‘I say! We’re going to dine here, aren’t we?’ said Bob, looking in at

the window.

‘Dine!’ said Mr. Pickwick. ‘Why, we have only come nineteen miles, and

have eighty-seven and a half to go.’

‘Just the reason why we should take something to enable us to bear up

against the fatigue,’ remonstrated Mr. Bob Sawyer.

‘Oh, it’s quite impossible to dine at half-past eleven o’clock in the

day,’ replied Mr. Pickwick, looking at his watch.

‘So it is,’ rejoined Bob, ‘lunch is the very thing. Hollo, you sir!

Lunch for three, directly; and keep the horses back for a quarter of an

hour. Tell them to put everything they have cold, on the table, and some

bottled ale, and let us taste your very best Madeira.’ Issuing these

orders with monstrous importance and bustle, Mr. Bob Sawyer at once

hurried into the house to superintend the arrangements; in less than

five minutes he returned and declared them to be excellent.

The quality of the lunch fully justified the eulogium which Bob had

pronounced, and very great justice was done to it, not only by that

gentleman, but Mr. Ben Allen and Mr. Pickwick also. Under the auspices

of the three, the bottled ale and the Madeira were promptly disposed of;

and when (the horses being once more put to) they resumed their seats,

with the case-bottle full of the best substitute for milk-punch that

could be procured on so short a notice, the key-bugle sounded, and the

red flag waved, without the slightest opposition on Mr. Pickwick’s part.

At the Hop Pole at Tewkesbury, they stopped to dine; upon which occasion

there was more bottled ale, with some more Madeira, and some port

besides; and here the case-bottle was replenished for the fourth time.

Under the influence of these combined stimulants, Mr. Pickwick and Mr.

Ben Allen fell fast asleep for thirty miles, while Bob and Mr. Weller

sang duets in the dickey.

It was quite dark when Mr. Pickwick roused himself sufficiently to look

out of the window. The straggling cottages by the road-side, the dingy

hue of every object visible, the murky atmosphere, the paths of cinders

and brick-dust, the deep-red glow of furnace fires in the distance, the

volumes of dense smoke issuing heavily forth from high toppling

chimneys, blackening and obscuring everything around; the glare of

distant lights, the ponderous wagons which toiled along the road, laden

with clashing rods of iron, or piled with heavy goods--all betokened

their rapid approach to the great working town of Birmingham.

As they rattled through the narrow thoroughfares leading to the heart of

the turmoil, the sights and sounds of earnest occupation struck more

forcibly on the senses. The streets were thronged with working people.

The hum of labour resounded from every house; lights gleamed from the

long casement windows in the attic storeys, and the whirl of wheels and

noise of machinery shook the trembling walls. The fires, whose lurid,

sullen light had been visible for miles, blazed fiercely up, in the

great works and factories of the town. The din of hammers, the rushing

of steam, and the dead heavy clanking of engines, was the harsh music

which arose from every quarter.

The postboy was driving briskly through the open streets, and past the

handsome and well-lighted shops that intervene between the outskirts of

the town and the Old Royal Hotel, before Mr. Pickwick had begun to

consider the very difficult and delicate nature of the commission which

had carried him thither.

The delicate nature of this commission, and the difficulty of executing

it in a satisfactory manner, were by no means lessened by the voluntary

companionship of Mr. Bob Sawyer. Truth to tell, Mr. Pickwick felt that

his presence on the occasion, however considerate and gratifying, was by

no means an honour he would willingly have sought; in fact, he would

cheerfully have given a reasonable sum of money to have had Mr. Bob

Sawyer removed to any place at not less than fifty miles’ distance,

without delay.

Mr. Pickwick had never held any personal communication with Mr. Winkle,

senior, although he had once or twice corresponded with him by letter,

and returned satisfactory answers to his inquiries concerning the moral

character and behaviour of his son; he felt nervously sensible that to

wait upon him, for the first time, attended by Bob Sawyer and Ben Allen,

both slightly fuddled, was not the most ingenious and likely means that

could have been hit upon to prepossess him in his favour.

‘However,’ said Mr. Pickwick, endeavouring to reassure himself, ‘I must

do the best I can. I must see him to-night, for I faithfully promised to

do so. If they persist in accompanying me, I must make the interview as

brief as possible, and be content that, for their own sakes, they will

not expose themselves.’

As he comforted himself with these reflections, the chaise stopped at

the door of the Old Royal. Ben Allen having been partially awakened from

a stupendous sleep, and dragged out by the collar by Mr. Samuel Weller,

Mr. Pickwick was enabled to alight. They were shown to a comfortable

apartment, and Mr. Pickwick at once propounded a question to the waiter

concerning the whereabout of Mr. Winkle’s residence.

‘Close by, Sir,’ said the waiter, ‘not above five hundred yards, Sir.

Mr. Winkle is a wharfinger, Sir, at the canal, sir. Private residence is

not--oh dear, no, sir, not five hundred yards, sir.’ Here the waiter

blew a candle out, and made a feint of lighting it again, in order to

afford Mr. Pickwick an opportunity of asking any further questions, if

he felt so disposed.

‘Take anything now, Sir?’ said the waiter, lighting the candle in

desperation at Mr. Pickwick’s silence. ‘Tea or coffee, Sir? Dinner,

sir?’

‘Nothing now.’

‘Very good, sir. Like to order supper, Sir?’

‘Not just now.’

‘Very good, Sir.’ Here, he walked slowly to the door, and then stopping

short, turned round and said, with great suavity--

‘Shall I send the chambermaid, gentlemen?’

‘You may if you please,’ replied Mr. Pickwick.

‘If _you _please, sir.’

‘And bring some soda-water,’ said Bob Sawyer.

‘Soda-water, Sir! Yes, Sir.’ With his mind apparently relieved from an

overwhelming weight, by having at last got an order for something, the

waiter imperceptibly melted away. Waiters never walk or run. They have a

peculiar and mysterious power of skimming out of rooms, which other

mortals possess not.

Some slight symptoms of vitality having been awakened in Mr. Ben Allen

by the soda-water, he suffered himself to be prevailed upon to wash his

face and hands, and to submit to be brushed by Sam. Mr. Pickwick and Bob

Sawyer having also repaired the disorder which the journey had made in

their apparel, the three started forth, arm in arm, to Mr. Winkle’s; Bob

Sawyer impregnating the atmosphere with tobacco smoke as he walked

along.

About a quarter of a mile off, in a quiet, substantial-looking street,

stood an old red brick house with three steps before the door, and a

brass plate upon it, bearing, in fat Roman capitals, the words, ‘Mr.

Winkle.’ The steps were very white, and the bricks were very red, and

the house was very clean; and here stood Mr. Pickwick, Mr. Benjamin

Allen, and Mr. Bob Sawyer, as the clock struck ten.

A smart servant-girl answered the knock, and started on beholding the

three strangers.

‘Is Mr. Winkle at home, my dear?’ inquired Mr. Pickwick.

‘He is just going to supper, Sir,’ replied the girl.

‘Give him that card if you please,’ rejoined Mr. Pickwick. ‘Say I am

sorry to trouble him at so late an hour; but I am anxious to see him to-

night, and have only just arrived.’

The girl looked timidly at Mr. Bob Sawyer, who was expressing his

admiration of her personal charms by a variety of wonderful grimaces;

and casting an eye at the hats and greatcoats which hung in the passage,

called another girl to mind the door while she went upstairs. The

sentinel was speedily relieved; for the girl returned immediately, and

begging pardon of the gentlemen for leaving them in the street, ushered

them into a floor-clothed back parlour, half office and half dressing

room, in which the principal useful and ornamental articles of furniture

were a desk, a wash-hand stand and shaving-glass, a boot-rack and boot-

jack, a high stool, four chairs, a table, and an old eight-day clock.

Over the mantelpiece were the sunken doors of an iron safe, while a

couple of hanging shelves for books, an almanac, and several files of

dusty papers, decorated the walls.

‘Very sorry to leave you standing at the door, Sir,’ said the girl,

lighting a lamp, and addressing Mr. Pickwick with a winning smile, ‘but

you was quite strangers to me; and we have such a many trampers that

only come to see what they can lay their hands on, that really--’

‘There is not the least occasion for any apology, my dear,’ said Mr.

Pickwick good-humouredly.

‘Not the slightest, my love,’ said Bob Sawyer, playfully stretching

forth his arms, and skipping from side to side, as if to prevent the

young lady’s leaving the room.

The young lady was not at all softened by these allurements, for she at

once expressed her opinion, that Mr. Bob Sawyer was an ‘odous creetur;’

and, on his becoming rather more pressing in his attentions, imprinted

her fair fingers upon his face, and bounced out of the room with many

expressions of aversion and contempt.

Deprived of the young lady’s society, Mr. Bob Sawyer proceeded to divert

himself by peeping into the desk, looking into all the table drawers,

feigning to pick the lock of the iron safe, turning the almanac with its

face to the wall, trying on the boots of Mr. Winkle, senior, over his

own, and making several other humorous experiments upon the furniture,

all of which afforded Mr. Pickwick unspeakable horror and agony, and

yielded Mr. Bob Sawyer proportionate delight.

At length the door opened, and a little old gentleman in a snuff-

coloured suit, with a head and face the precise counterpart of those

belonging to Mr. Winkle, junior, excepting that he was rather bald,

trotted into the room with Mr. Pickwick’s card in one hand, and a silver

candlestick in the other.

‘Mr. Pickwick, sir, how do you do?’ said Winkle the elder, putting down

the candlestick and proffering his hand. ‘Hope I see you well, sir. Glad

to see you. Be seated, Mr. Pickwick, I beg, Sir. This gentleman is--’

‘My friend, Mr. Sawyer,’ interposed Mr. Pickwick, ‘your son’s friend.’

‘Oh,’ said Mr. Winkle the elder, looking rather grimly at Bob. ‘I hope

you are well, sir.’

‘Right as a trivet, sir,’ replied Bob Sawyer.

‘This other gentleman,’ cried Mr. Pickwick, ‘is, as you will see when

you have read the letter with which I am intrusted, a very near

relative, or I should rather say a very particular friend of your son’s.

His name is Allen.’

‘_That _gentleman?’ inquired Mr. Winkle, pointing with the card towards

Ben Allen, who had fallen asleep in an attitude which left nothing of

him visible but his spine and his coat collar.

Mr. Pickwick was on the point of replying to the question, and reciting

Mr. Benjamin Allen’s name and honourable distinctions at full length,

when the sprightly Mr. Bob Sawyer, with a view of rousing his friend to

a sense of his situation, inflicted a startling pinch upon the fleshly

part of his arm, which caused him to jump up with a shriek. Suddenly

aware that he was in the presence of a stranger, Mr. Ben Allen advanced

and, shaking Mr. Winkle most affectionately by both hands for about five

minutes, murmured, in some half-intelligible fragments of sentences, the

great delight he felt in seeing him, and a hospitable inquiry whether he

felt disposed to take anything after his walk, or would prefer waiting

‘till dinner-time;’ which done, he sat down and gazed about him with a

petrified stare, as if he had not the remotest idea where he was, which

indeed he had not.

All this was most embarrassing to Mr. Pickwick, the more especially as

Mr. Winkle, senior, evinced palpable astonishment at the eccentric--not

to say extraordinary--behaviour of his two companions. To bring the

matter to an issue at once, he drew a letter from his pocket, and

presenting it to Mr. Winkle, senior, said--

‘This letter, Sir, is from your son. You will see, by its contents, that

on your favourable and fatherly consideration of it, depend his future

happiness and welfare. Will you oblige me by giving it the calmest and

coolest perusal, and by discussing the subject afterwards with me, in

the tone and spirit in which alone it ought to be discussed? You may

judge of the importance of your decision to your son, and his intense

anxiety upon the subject, by my waiting upon you, without any previous

warning, at so late an hour; and,’ added Mr. Pickwick, glancing slightly

at his two companions--‘and under such unfavourable circumstances.’

With this prelude, Mr. Pickwick placed four closely-written sides of

extra superfine wire-wove penitence in the hands of the astounded Mr.

Winkle, senior. Then reseating himself in his chair, he watched his

looks and manner: anxiously, it is true, but with the open front of a

gentleman who feels he has taken no part which he need excuse or

palliate.

The old wharfinger turned the letter over, looked at the front, back,

and sides, made a microscopic examination of the fat little boy on the

seal, raised his eyes to Mr. Pickwick’s face, and then, seating himself

on the high stool, and drawing the lamp closer to him, broke the wax,

unfolded the epistle, and lifting it to the light, prepared to read.

Just at this moment, Mr. Bob Sawyer, whose wit had lain dormant for some

minutes, placed his hands on his knees, and made a face after the

portraits of the late Mr. Grimaldi, as clown. It so happened that Mr.

Winkle, senior, instead of being deeply engaged in reading the letter,

as Mr. Bob Sawyer thought, chanced to be looking over the top of it at

no less a person than Mr. Bob Sawyer himself; rightly conjecturing that

the face aforesaid was made in ridicule and derision of his own person,

he fixed his eyes on Bob with such expressive sternness, that the late

Mr. Grimaldi’s lineaments gradually resolved themselves into a very fine

expression of humility and confusion.

‘Did you speak, Sir?’ inquired Mr. Winkle, senior, after an awful

silence.

‘No, sir,’ replied Bob, With no remains of the clown about him, save and

except the extreme redness of his cheeks.

‘You are sure you did not, sir?’ said Mr. Winkle, senior.

‘Oh dear, yes, sir, quite,’ replied Bob.

‘I thought you did, Sir,’ replied the old gentleman, with indignant

emphasis. ‘Perhaps you _looked _at me, sir?’

‘Oh, no! sir, not at all,’ replied Bob, with extreme civility.

‘I am very glad to hear it, sir,’ said Mr. Winkle, senior. Having

frowned upon the abashed Bob with great magnificence, the old gentleman

again brought the letter to the light, and began to read it seriously.

Mr. Pickwick eyed him intently as he turned from the bottom line of the

first page to the top line of the second, and from the bottom of the

second to the top of the third, and from the bottom of the third to the

top of the fourth; but not the slightest alteration of countenance

afforded a clue to the feelings with which he received the announcement

of his son’s marriage, which Mr. Pickwick knew was in the very first

half-dozen lines.

He read the letter to the last word, folded it again with all the

carefulness and precision of a man of business, and, just when Mr.

Pickwick expected some great outbreak of feeling, dipped a pen in the

ink-stand, and said, as quietly as if he were speaking on the most

ordinary counting-house topic--

‘What is Nathaniel’s address, Mr. Pickwick?’

‘The George and Vulture, at present,’ replied that gentleman.

‘George and Vulture. Where is that?’

‘George Yard, Lombard Street.’

‘In the city?’

‘Yes.’

The old gentleman methodically indorsed the address on the back of the

letter; and then, placing it in the desk, which he locked, said, as he

got off the stool and put the bunch of keys in his pocket--

‘I suppose there is nothing else which need detain us, Mr. Pickwick?’

‘Nothing else, my dear Sir!’ observed that warm-hearted person in

indignant amazement. ‘Nothing else! Have you no opinion to express on

this momentous event in our young friend’s life? No assurance to convey

to him, through me, of the continuance of your affection and protection?

Nothing to say which will cheer and sustain him, and the anxious girl

who looks to him for comfort and support? My dear Sir, consider.’

‘I will consider,’ replied the old gentleman. ‘I have nothing to say

just now. I am a man of business, Mr. Pickwick. I never commit myself

hastily in any affair, and from what I see of this, I by no means like

the appearance of it. A thousand pounds is not much, Mr. Pickwick.’

‘You’re very right, Sir,’ interposed Ben Allen, just awake enough to

know that he had spent his thousand pounds without the smallest

difficulty. ‘You’re an intelligent man. Bob, he’s a very knowing fellow

this.’

‘I am very happy to find that you do me the justice to make the

admission, sir,’ said Mr. Winkle, senior, looking contemptuously at Ben

Allen, who was shaking his head profoundly. ‘The fact is, Mr. Pickwick,

that when I gave my son a roving license for a year or so, to see

something of men and manners (which he has done under your auspices), so

that he might not enter life a mere boarding-school milk-sop to be

gulled by everybody, I never bargained for this. He knows that very

well, so if I withdraw my countenance from him on this account, he has

no call to be surprised. He shall hear from me, Mr. Pickwick. Good-

night, sir.--Margaret, open the door.’

All this time, Bob Sawyer had been nudging Mr. Ben Allen to say

something on the right side; Ben accordingly now burst, without the

slightest preliminary notice, into a brief but impassioned piece of

eloquence.

‘Sir,’ said Mr. Ben Allen, staring at the old gentleman, out of a pair

of very dim and languid eyes, and working his right arm vehemently up

and down, ‘you--you ought to be ashamed of yourself.’

‘As the lady’s brother, of course you are an excellent judge of the

question,’ retorted Mr. Winkle, senior. ‘There; that’s enough. Pray say

no more, Mr. Pickwick. Good-night, gentlemen!’

With these words the old gentleman took up the candle-stick and opening

the room door, politely motioned towards the passage.

‘You will regret this, Sir,’ said Mr. Pickwick, setting his teeth close

together to keep down his choler; for he felt how important the effect

might prove to his young friend.

‘I am at present of a different opinion,’ calmly replied Mr. Winkle,

senior. ‘Once again, gentlemen, I wish you a good-night.’

Mr. Pickwick walked with angry strides into the street. Mr. Bob Sawyer,

completely quelled by the decision of the old gentleman’s manner, took

the same course. Mr. Ben Allen’s hat rolled down the steps immediately

afterwards, and Mr. Ben Allen’s body followed it directly. The whole

party went silent and supperless to bed; and Mr. Pickwick thought, just

before he fell asleep, that if he had known Mr. Winkle, senior, had been

quite so much of a man of business, it was extremely probable he might

never have waited upon him, on such an errand.

CHAPTER LI. IN WHICH MR. PICKWICK ENCOUNTERS AN OLD ACQUAINTANCE--TO

WHICH FORTUNATE CIRCUMSTANCE THE READER IS MAINLY INDEBTED FOR MATTER OF

THRILLING INTEREST HEREIN SET DOWN, CONCERNING TWO GREAT PUBLIC MEN OF

MIGHT AND POWER

The morning which broke upon Mr. Pickwick’s sight at eight o’clock, was

not at all calculated to elevate his spirits, or to lessen the

depression which the unlooked-for result of his embassy inspired. The

sky was dark and gloomy, the air was damp and raw, the streets were wet

and sloppy. The smoke hung sluggishly above the chimney-tops as if it

lacked the courage to rise, and the rain came slowly and doggedly down,

as if it had not even the spirit to pour. A game-cock in the stableyard,

deprived of every spark of his accustomed animation, balanced himself

dismally on one leg in a corner; a donkey, moping with drooping head

under the narrow roof of an outhouse, appeared from his meditative and

miserable countenance to be contemplating suicide. In the street,

umbrellas were the only things to be seen, and the clicking of pattens

and splashing of rain-drops were the only sounds to be heard.

The breakfast was interrupted by very little conversation; even Mr. Bob

Sawyer felt the influence of the weather, and the previous day’s

excitement. In his own expressive language he was ‘floored.’ So was Mr.

Ben Allen. So was Mr. Pickwick.

In protracted expectation of the weather clearing up, the last evening

paper from London was read and re-read with an intensity of interest

only known in cases of extreme destitution; every inch of the carpet was

walked over with similar perseverance; the windows were looked out of,

often enough to justify the imposition of an additional duty upon them;

all kinds of topics of conversation were started, and failed; and at

length Mr. Pickwick, when noon had arrived, without a change for the

better, rang the bell resolutely, and ordered out the chaise.

Although the roads were miry, and the drizzling rain came down harder

than it had done yet, and although the mud and wet splashed in at the

open windows of the carriage to such an extent that the discomfort was

almost as great to the pair of insides as to the pair of outsides, still

there was something in the motion, and the sense of being up and doing,

which was so infinitely superior to being pent in a dull room, looking

at the dull rain dripping into a dull street, that they all agreed, on

starting, that the change was a great improvement, and wondered how they

could possibly have delayed making it as long as they had done.

When they stopped to change at Coventry, the steam ascended from the

horses in such clouds as wholly to obscure the hostler, whose voice was

however heard to declare from the mist, that he expected the first gold

medal from the Humane Society on their next distribution of rewards, for

taking the postboy’s hat off; the water descending from the brim of

which, the invisible gentleman declared, must have drowned him (the

postboy), but for his great presence of mind in tearing it promptly from

his head, and drying the gasping man’s countenance with a wisp of straw.

‘This is pleasant,’ said Bob Sawyer, turning up his coat collar, and

pulling the shawl over his mouth to concentrate the fumes of a glass of

brandy just swallowed.

‘Wery,’ replied Sam composedly.

‘You don’t seem to mind it,’ observed Bob.

‘Vy, I don’t exactly see no good my mindin’ on it ‘ud do, sir,’ replied

Sam.

‘That’s an unanswerable reason, anyhow,’ said Bob.

‘Yes, sir,’ rejoined Mr. Weller. ‘Wotever is, is right, as the young

nobleman sweetly remarked wen they put him down in the pension list ‘cos

his mother’s uncle’s vife’s grandfather vunce lit the king’s pipe vith a

portable tinder-box.’

Not a bad notion that, Sam,’ said Mr. Bob Sawyer approvingly.

‘Just wot the young nobleman said ev’ry quarter-day arterwards for the

rest of his life,’ replied Mr. Weller.

‘Wos you ever called in,’ inquired Sam, glancing at the driver, after a

short silence, and lowering his voice to a mysterious whisper--‘wos you

ever called in, when you wos ‘prentice to a sawbones, to wisit a

postboy.’

‘I don’t remember that I ever was,’ replied Bob Sawyer.

‘You never see a postboy in that ‘ere hospital as you _walked _(as they

says o’ the ghosts), did you?’ demanded Sam.

‘No,’ replied Bob Sawyer. ‘I don’t think I ever did.’

‘Never know’d a churchyard were there wos a postboy’s tombstone, or see

a dead postboy, did you?’ inquired Sam, pursuing his catechism.

‘No,’ rejoined Bob, ‘I never did.’

‘No!’ rejoined Sam triumphantly. ‘Nor never vill; and there’s another

thing that no man never see, and that’s a dead donkey. No man never see

a dead donkey ‘cept the gen’l’m’n in the black silk smalls as know’d the

young ‘ooman as kep’ a goat; and that wos a French donkey, so wery

likely he warn’t wun o’ the reg’lar breed.’

‘Well, what has that got to do with the postboys?’ asked Bob Sawyer.

‘This here,’ replied Sam. ‘Without goin’ so far as to as-sert, as some

wery sensible people do, that postboys and donkeys is both immortal, wot

I say is this: that wenever they feels theirselves gettin’ stiff and

past their work, they just rides off together, wun postboy to a pair in

the usual way; wot becomes on ‘em nobody knows, but it’s wery probable

as they starts avay to take their pleasure in some other vorld, for

there ain’t a man alive as ever see either a donkey or a postboy a-

takin’ his pleasure in this!’

Expatiating upon this learned and remarkable theory, and citing many

curious statistical and other facts in its support, Sam Weller beguiled

the time until they reached Dunchurch, where a dry postboy and fresh

horses were procured; the next stage was Daventry, and the next

Towcester; and at the end of each stage it rained harder than it had

done at the beginning.

‘I say,’ remonstrated Bob Sawyer, looking in at the coach window, as

they pulled up before the door of the Saracen’s Head, Towcester, ‘this

won’t do, you know.’

‘Bless me!’ said Mr. Pickwick, just awakening from a nap, ‘I’m afraid

you’re wet.’

‘Oh, you are, are you?’ returned Bob. ‘Yes, I am, a little that way,

Uncomfortably damp, perhaps.’

Bob did look dampish, inasmuch as the rain was streaming from his neck,

elbows, cuffs, skirts, and knees; and his whole apparel shone so with

the wet, that it might have been mistaken for a full suit of prepared

oilskin.

‘I _am_ rather wet,’ said Bob, giving himself a shake and casting a

little hydraulic shower around, like a Newfoundland dog just emerged

from the water.

‘I think it’s quite impossible to go on to-night,’ interposed Ben.

‘Out of the question, sir,’ remarked Sam Weller, coming to assist in the

conference; ‘it’s a cruelty to animals, sir, to ask ‘em to do it.

There’s beds here, sir,’ said Sam, addressing his master, ‘everything

clean and comfortable. Wery good little dinner, sir, they can get ready

in half an hour--pair of fowls, sir, and a weal cutlet; French beans,

‘taturs, tart, and tidiness. You’d better stop vere you are, sir, if I

might recommend. Take adwice, sir, as the doctor said.’

The host of the Saracen’s Head opportunely appeared at this moment, to

confirm Mr. Weller’s statement relative to the accommodations of the

establishment, and to back his entreaties with a variety of dismal

conjectures regarding the state of the roads, the doubt of fresh horses

being to be had at the next stage, the dead certainty of its raining all

night, the equally mortal certainty of its clearing up in the morning,

and other topics of inducement familiar to innkeepers.

‘Well,’ said Mr. Pickwick; ‘but I must send a letter to London by some

conveyance, so that it may be delivered the very first thing in the

morning, or I must go forwards at all hazards.’

The landlord smiled his delight. Nothing could be easier than for the

gentleman to inclose a letter in a sheet of brown paper, and send it on,

either by the mail or the night coach from Birmingham. If the gentleman

were particularly anxious to have it left as soon as possible, he might

write outside, ‘To be delivered immediately,’ which was sure to be

attended to; or ‘Pay the bearer half-a-crown extra for instant

delivery,’ which was surer still.

‘Very well,’ said Mr. Pickwick, ‘then we will stop here.’

‘Lights in the Sun, John; make up the fire; the gentlemen are wet!’

cried the landlord. ‘This way, gentlemen; don’t trouble yourselves about

the postboy now, sir. I’ll send him to you when you ring for him, sir.

Now, John, the candles.’

The candles were brought, the fire was stirred up, and a fresh log of

wood thrown on. In ten minutes’ time, a waiter was laying the cloth for

dinner, the curtains were drawn, the fire was blazing brightly, and

everything looked (as everything always does, in all decent English

inns) as if the travellers had been expected, and their comforts

prepared, for days beforehand.

Mr. Pickwick sat down at a side table, and hastily indited a note to Mr.

Winkle, merely informing him that he was detained by stress of weather,

but would certainly be in London next day; until when he deferred any

account of his proceedings. This note was hastily made into a parcel,

and despatched to the bar per Mr. Samuel Weller.

Sam left it with the landlady, and was returning to pull his master’s

boots off, after drying himself by the kitchen fire, when glancing

casually through a half-opened door, he was arrested by the sight of a

gentleman with a sandy head who had a large bundle of newspapers lying

on the table before him, and was perusing the leading article of one

with a settled sneer which curled up his nose and all other features

into a majestic expression of haughty contempt.

‘Hollo!’ said Sam, ‘I ought to know that ‘ere head and them features;

the eyeglass, too, and the broad-brimmed tile! Eatansvill to vit, or I’m

a Roman.’

Sam was taken with a troublesome cough, at once, for the purpose of

attracting the gentleman’s attention; the gentleman starting at the

sound, raised his head and his eyeglass, and disclosed to view the

profound and thoughtful features of Mr. Pott, of the Eatanswill

_Gazette_.

‘Beggin’ your pardon, sir,’ said Sam, advancing with a bow, ‘my master’s

here, Mr. Pott.’

‘Hush! hush!’ cried Pott, drawing Sam into the room, and closing the

door, with a countenance of mysterious dread and apprehension.

‘Wot’s the matter, Sir?’ inquired Sam, looking vacantly about him.

‘Not a whisper of my name,’ replied Pott; ‘this is a buff neighbourhood.

If the excited and irritable populace knew I was here, I should be torn

to pieces.’

‘No! Vould you, sir?’ inquired Sam.

‘I should be the victim of their fury,’ replied Pott. ‘Now young man,

what of your master?’

‘He’s a-stopping here to-night on his vay to town, with a couple of

friends,’ replied Sam.

‘Is Mr. Winkle one of them?’ inquired Pott, with a slight frown.

‘No, Sir. Mr. Vinkle stops at home now,’ rejoined Sam. ‘He’s married.’

‘Married!’ exclaimed Pott, with frightful vehemence. He stopped, smiled

darkly, and added, in a low, vindictive tone, ‘It serves him right!’

Having given vent to this cruel ebullition of deadly malice and cold-

blooded triumph over a fallen enemy, Mr. Pott inquired whether Mr.

Pickwick’s friends were ‘blue?’ Receiving a most satisfactory answer in

the affirmative from Sam, who knew as much about the matter as Pott

himself, he consented to accompany him to Mr. Pickwick’s room, where a

hearty welcome awaited him, and an agreement to club their dinners

together was at once made and ratified.

‘And how are matters going on in Eatanswill?’ inquired Mr. Pickwick,

when Pott had taken a seat near the fire, and the whole party had got

their wet boots off, and dry slippers on. ‘Is the _Independent_ still in

being?’

‘The _Independent_, sir,’ replied Pott, ‘is still dragging on a wretched

and lingering career. Abhorred and despised by even the few who are

cognisant of its miserable and disgraceful existence, stifled by the

very filth it so profusely scatters, rendered deaf and blind by the

exhalations of its own slime, the obscene journal, happily unconscious

of its degraded state, is rapidly sinking beneath that treacherous mud

which, while it seems to give it a firm standing with the low and

debased classes of society, is nevertheless rising above its detested

head, and will speedily engulf it for ever.’

Having delivered this manifesto (which formed a portion of his last

week’s leader) with vehement articulation, the editor paused to take

breath, and looked majestically at Bob Sawyer.

‘You are a young man, sir,’ said Pott.

Mr. Bob Sawyer nodded.

‘So are you, sir,’ said Pott, addressing Mr. Ben Allen.

Ben admitted the soft impeachment.

‘And are both deeply imbued with those blue principles, which, so long

as I live, I have pledged myself to the people of these kingdoms to

support and to maintain?’ suggested Pott.

‘Why, I don’t exactly know about that,’ replied Bob Sawyer. ‘I am--’

‘Not buff, Mr. Pickwick,’ interrupted Pott, drawing back his chair,

‘your friend is not buff, sir?’

‘No, no,’ rejoined Bob, ‘I’m a kind of plaid at present; a compound of

all sorts of colours.’

‘A waverer,’ said Pott solemnly, ‘a waverer. I should like to show you a

series of eight articles, Sir, that have appeared in the Eatanswill

_Gazette_. I think I may venture to say that you would not be long in

establishing your opinions on a firm and solid blue basis, sir.’

I dare say I should turn very blue, long before I got to the end of

them,’ responded Bob.

Mr. Pott looked dubiously at Bob Sawyer for some seconds, and, turning

to Mr. Pickwick, said--

‘You have seen the literary articles which have appeared at intervals in

the Eatanswill _Gazette_ in the course of the last three months, and

which have excited such general--I may say such universal--attention and

admiration?’

‘Why,’ replied Mr. Pickwick, slightly embarrassed by the question, ‘the

fact is, I have been so much engaged in other ways, that I really have

not had an opportunity of perusing them.’

‘You should do so, Sir,’ said Pott, with a severe countenance.

‘I will,’ said Mr. Pickwick.

‘They appeared in the form of a copious review of a work on Chinese

metaphysics, Sir,’ said Pott.

‘Oh,’ observed Mr. Pickwick; ‘from your pen, I hope?’

‘From the pen of my critic, Sir,’ rejoined Pott, with dignity.

‘An abstruse subject, I should conceive,’ said Mr. Pickwick.

‘Very, Sir,’ responded Pott, looking intensely sage. ‘He _crammed _for

it, to use a technical but expressive term; he read up for the subject,

at my desire, in the “Encyclopaedia Britannica.”’

‘Indeed!’ said Mr. Pickwick; ‘I was not aware that that valuable work

contained any information respecting Chinese metaphysics.’

‘He read, Sir,’ rejoined Pott, laying his hand on Mr. Pickwick’s knee,

and looking round with a smile of intellectual superiority--‘he read for

metaphysics under the letter M, and for China under the letter C, and

combined his information, Sir!’

Mr. Pott’s features assumed so much additional grandeur at the

recollection of the power and research displayed in the learned

effusions in question, that some minutes elapsed before Mr. Pickwick

felt emboldened to renew the conversation; at length, as the editor’s

countenance gradually relaxed into its customary expression of moral

supremacy, he ventured to resume the discourse by asking--

‘Is it fair to inquire what great object has brought you so far from

home?’

‘That object which actuates and animates me in all my gigantic labours,

Sir,’ replied Pott, with a calm smile: ‘my country’s good.’

I supposed it was some public mission,’ observed Mr. Pickwick.

‘Yes, Sir,’ resumed Pott, ‘it is.’ Here, bending towards Mr. Pickwick,

he whispered in a deep, hollow voice, ‘A Buff ball, Sir, will take place

in Birmingham to-morrow evening.’

‘God bless me!’ exclaimed Mr. Pickwick.

‘Yes, Sir, and supper,’ added Pott.

‘You don’t say so!’ ejaculated Mr. Pickwick.

Pott nodded portentously.

Now, although Mr. Pickwick feigned to stand aghast at this disclosure,

he was so little versed in local politics that he was unable to form an

adequate comprehension of the importance of the dire conspiracy it

referred to; observing which, Mr. Pott, drawing forth the last number of

the Eatanswill _Gazette_, and referring to the same, delivered himself

of the following paragraph:--

HOLE-AND-CORNER BUFFERY.

‘A reptile contemporary has recently sweltered forth his black venom in

the vain and hopeless attempt of sullying the fair name of our

distinguished and excellent representative, the Honourable Mr. Slumkey--

that Slumkey whom we, long before he gained his present noble and

exalted position, predicted would one day be, as he now is, at once his

country’s brightest honour, and her proudest boast: alike her bold

defender and her honest pride--our reptile contemporary, we say, has

made himself merry, at the expense of a superbly embossed plated coal-

scuttle, which has been presented to that glorious man by his enraptured

constituents, and towards the purchase of which, the nameless wretch

insinuates, the Honourable Mr. Slumkey himself contributed, through a

confidential friend of his butler’s, more than three-fourths of the

whole sum subscribed. Why, does not the crawling creature see, that even

if this be the fact, the Honourable Mr. Slumkey only appears in a still

more amiable and radiant light than before, if that be possible? Does

not even his obtuseness perceive that this amiable and touching desire

to carry out the wishes of the constituent body, must for ever endear

him to the hearts and souls of such of his fellow townsmen as are not

worse than swine; or, in other words, who are not as debased as our

contemporary himself? But such is the wretched trickery of hole-and-

corner Buffery! These are not its only artifices. Treason is abroad. We

boldly state, now that we are goaded to the disclosure, and we throw

ourselves on the country and its constables for protection--we boldly

state that secret preparations are at this moment in progress for a Buff

ball; which is to be held in a Buff town, in the very heart and centre

of a Buff population; which is to be conducted by a Buff master of the

ceremonies; which is to be attended by four ultra Buff members of

Parliament, and the admission to which, is to be by Buff tickets! Does

our fiendish contemporary wince? Let him writhe, in impotent malice, as

we pen the words, _We will be there_.’

‘There, Sir,’ said Pott, folding up the paper quite exhausted, ‘that is

the state of the case!’

The landlord and waiter entering at the moment with dinner, caused Mr.

Pott to lay his finger on his lips, in token that he considered his life

in Mr. Pickwick’s hands, and depended on his secrecy. Messrs. Bob Sawyer

and Benjamin Allen, who had irreverently fallen asleep during the

reading of the quotation from the Eatanswill _Gazette_, and the

discussion which followed it, were roused by the mere whispering of the

talismanic word ‘Dinner’ in their ears; and to dinner they went with

good digestion waiting on appetite, and health on both, and a waiter on

all three.

In the course of the dinner and the sitting which succeeded it, Mr. Pott

descending, for a few moments, to domestic topics, informed Mr. Pickwick

that the air of Eatanswill not agreeing with his lady, she was then

engaged in making a tour of different fashionable watering-places with a

view to the recovery of her wonted health and spirits; this was a

delicate veiling of the fact that Mrs. Pott, acting upon her often-

repeated threat of separation, had, in virtue of an arrangement

negotiated by her brother, the lieutenant, and concluded by Mr. Pott,

permanently retired with the faithful bodyguard upon one moiety or half

part of the annual income and profits arising from the editorship and

sale of the Eatanswill _Gazette_.

While the great Mr. Pott was dwelling upon this and other matters,

enlivening the conversation from time to time with various extracts from

his own lucubrations, a stern stranger, calling from the window of a

stage-coach, outward bound, which halted at the inn to deliver packages,

requested to know whether if he stopped short on his journey and

remained there for the night, he could be furnished with the necessary

accommodation of a bed and bedstead.

‘Certainly, sir,’ replied the landlord.

‘I can, can I?’ inquired the stranger, who seemed habitually suspicious

in look and manner.

‘No doubt of it, Sir,’ replied the landlord.

‘Good,’ said the stranger. ‘Coachman, I get down here. Guard, my carpet-

bag!’

Bidding the other passengers good-night, in a rather snappish manner,

the stranger alighted. He was a shortish gentleman, with very stiff

black hair cut in the porcupine or blacking-brush style, and standing

stiff and straight all over his head; his aspect was pompous and

threatening; his manner was peremptory; his eyes were sharp and

restless; and his whole bearing bespoke a feeling of great confidence in

himself, and a consciousness of immeasurable superiority over all other

people.

This gentleman was shown into the room originally assigned to the

patriotic Mr. Pott; and the waiter remarked, in dumb astonishment at the

singular coincidence, that he had no sooner lighted the candles than the

gentleman, diving into his hat, drew forth a newspaper, and began to

read it with the very same expression of indignant scorn, which, upon

the majestic features of Pott, had paralysed his energies an hour

before. The man observed too, that, whereas Mr. Pott’s scorn had been

roused by a newspaper headed the Eatanswill _Independent_, this

gentleman’s withering contempt was awakened by a newspaper entitled the

Eatanswill _Gazette_.

‘Send the landlord,’ said the stranger.

‘Yes, sir,’ rejoined the waiter.

The landlord was sent, and came.

‘Are you the landlord?’ inquired the gentleman.

‘I am sir,’ replied the landlord.

‘Do you know me?’ demanded the gentleman.

‘I have not had that pleasure, Sir,’ rejoined the landlord.

‘My name is Slurk,’ said the gentleman.

The landlord slightly inclined his head.

‘Slurk, sir,’ repeated the gentleman haughtily. ‘Do you know me now,

man?’

The landlord scratched his head, looked at the ceiling, and at the

stranger, and smiled feebly.

‘Do you know me, man?’ inquired the stranger angrily.

The landlord made a strong effort, and at length replied, ‘Well, Sir, I

do _not_ know you.’

‘Great Heaven!’ said the stranger, dashing his clenched fist upon the

table. ‘And this is popularity!’

The landlord took a step or two towards the door; the stranger fixing

his eyes upon him, resumed.

‘This,’ said the stranger--‘this is gratitude for years of labour and

study in behalf of the masses. I alight wet and weary; no enthusiastic

crowds press forward to greet their champion; the church bells are

silent; the very name elicits no responsive feeling in their torpid

bosoms. It is enough,’ said the agitated Mr. Slurk, pacing to and fro,

‘to curdle the ink in one’s pen, and induce one to abandon their cause

for ever.’

‘Did you say brandy-and-water, Sir?’ said the landlord, venturing a

hint.

‘Rum,’ said Mr. Slurk, turning fiercely upon him. ‘Have you got a fire

anywhere?’

‘We can light one directly, Sir,’ said the landlord.

‘Which will throw out no heat until it is bed-time,’ interrupted Mr.

Slurk. ‘Is there anybody in the kitchen?’

Not a soul. There was a beautiful fire. Everybody had gone, and the

house door was closed for the night.

‘I will drink my rum-and-water,’ said Mr. Slurk, ‘by the kitchen fire.’

So, gathering up his hat and newspaper, he stalked solemnly behind the

landlord to that humble apartment, and throwing himself on a settle by

the fireside, resumed his countenance of scorn, and began to read and

drink in silent dignity.

Now, some demon of discord, flying over the Saracen’s Head at that

moment, on casting down his eyes in mere idle curiosity, happened to

behold Slurk established comfortably by the kitchen fire, and Pott

slightly elevated with wine in another room; upon which the malicious

demon, darting down into the last-mentioned apartment with inconceivable

rapidity, passed at once into the head of Mr. Bob Sawyer, and prompted

him for his (the demon’s) own evil purpose to speak as follows:--

‘I say, we’ve let the fire out. It’s uncommonly cold after the rain,

isn’t it?’

‘It really is,’ replied Mr. Pickwick, shivering.

‘It wouldn’t be a bad notion to have a cigar by the kitchen fire, would

it?’ said Bob Sawyer, still prompted by the demon aforesaid.

‘It would be particularly comfortable, I think,’ replied Mr. Pickwick.

‘Mr. Pott, what do you say?’

Mr. Pott yielded a ready assent; and all four travellers, each with his

glass in his hand, at once betook themselves to the kitchen, with Sam

Weller heading the procession to show them the way.

The stranger was still reading; he looked up and started. Mr. Pott

started.

‘What’s the matter?’ whispered Mr. Pickwick.

‘That reptile!’ replied Pott.

‘What reptile?’ said Mr. Pickwick, looking about him for fear he should

tread on some overgrown black beetle, or dropsical spider.

‘That reptile,’ whispered Pott, catching Mr. Pickwick by the arm, and

pointing towards the stranger. ‘That reptile Slurk, of the

_Independent_!’

‘Perhaps we had better retire,’ whispered Mr. Pickwick.

‘Never, Sir,’ rejoined Pott, pot-valiant in a double sense--‘never.’

With these words, Mr. Pott took up his position on an opposite settle,

and selecting one from a little bundle of newspapers, began to read

against his enemy.

Mr. Pott, of course read the _Independent_, and Mr. Slurk, of course,

read the _Gazette_; and each gentleman audibly expressed his contempt at

the other’s compositions by bitter laughs and sarcastic sniffs; whence

they proceeded to more open expressions of opinion, such as ‘absurd,’

‘wretched,’ ‘atrocity,’ ‘humbug,’ ‘knavery’, ‘dirt,’ ‘filth,’ ‘slime,’

‘ditch-water,’ and other critical remarks of the like nature.

Both Mr. Bob Sawyer and Mr. Ben Allen had beheld these symptoms of

rivalry and hatred, with a degree of delight which imparted great

additional relish to the cigars at which they were puffing most

vigorously. The moment they began to flag, the mischievous Mr. Bob

Sawyer, addressing Slurk with great politeness, said--

‘Will you allow me to look at your paper, Sir, when you have quite done

with it?’

‘You will find very little to repay you for your trouble in this

contemptible _thing_, sir,’ replied Slurk, bestowing a Satanic frown on

Pott.

‘You shall have this presently,’ said Pott, looking up, pale with rage,

and quivering in his speech, from the same cause. ‘Ha! ha! you will be

amused with this _fellow’s_ audacity.’

Terrible emphasis was laid upon ‘thing’ and ‘fellow’; and the faces of

both editors began to glow with defiance.

‘The ribaldry of this miserable man is despicably disgusting,’ said

Pott, pretending to address Bob Sawyer, and scowling upon Slurk.

Here, Mr. Slurk laughed very heartily, and folding up the paper so as to

get at a fresh column conveniently, said, that the blockhead really

amused him.

‘What an impudent blunderer this fellow is,’ said Pott, turning from

pink to crimson.

‘Did you ever read any of this man’s foolery, Sir?’ inquired Slurk of

Bob Sawyer.

‘Never,’ replied Bob; ‘is it very bad?’

‘Oh, shocking! shocking!’ rejoined Slurk.

‘Really! Dear me, this is too atrocious!’ exclaimed Pott, at this

juncture; still feigning to be absorbed in his reading.

‘If you can wade through a few sentences of malice, meanness, falsehood,

perjury, treachery, and cant,’ said Slurk, handing the paper to Bob,

‘you will, perhaps, be somewhat repaid by a laugh at the style of this

ungrammatical twaddler.’

‘What’s that you said, Sir?’ inquired Mr. Pott, looking up, trembling

all over with passion.

‘What’s that to you, sir?’ replied Slurk.

‘Ungrammatical twaddler, was it, sir?’ said Pott.

‘Yes, sir, it was,’ replied Slurk; ‘and _blue bore_, Sir, if you like

that better; ha! ha!’

Mr. Pott retorted not a word at this jocose insult, but deliberately

folded up his copy of the _Independent_, flattened it carefully down,

crushed it beneath his boot, spat upon it with great ceremony, and flung

it into the fire.

‘There, sir,’ said Pott, retreating from the stove, ‘and that’s the way

I would serve the viper who produces it, if I were not, fortunately for

him, restrained by the laws of my country.’

‘Serve him so, sir!’ cried Slurk, starting up. ‘Those laws shall never

be appealed to by him, sir, in such a case. Serve him so, sir!’

‘Hear! hear!’ said Bob Sawyer.

‘Nothing can be fairer,’ observed Mr. Ben Allen.

‘Serve him so, sir!’ reiterated Slurk, in a loud voice.

Mr. Pott darted a look of contempt, which might have withered an anchor.

‘Serve him so, sir!’ reiterated Slurk, in a louder voice than before.

‘I will not, sir,’ rejoined Pott.

‘Oh, you won’t, won’t you, sir?’ said Mr. Slurk, in a taunting manner;

‘you hear this, gentlemen! He won’t; not that he’s afraid--, oh, no! he

_won’t_. Ha! ha!’

‘I consider you, sir,’ said Mr. Pott, moved by this sarcasm, ‘I consider

you a viper. I look upon you, sir, as a man who has placed himself

beyond the pale of society, by his most audacious, disgraceful, and

abominable public conduct. I view you, sir, personally and politically,

in no other light than as a most unparalleled and unmitigated viper.’

The indignant Independent did not wait to hear the end of this personal

denunciation; for, catching up his carpet-bag, which was well stuffed

with movables, he swung it in the air as Pott turned away, and, letting

it fall with a circular sweep on his head, just at that particular angle

of the bag where a good thick hairbrush happened to be packed, caused a

sharp crash to be heard throughout the kitchen, and brought him at once

to the ground.

‘Gentlemen,’ cried Mr. Pickwick, as Pott started up and seized the fire-

shovel--‘gentlemen! Consider, for Heaven’s sake--help--Sam--here--pray,

gentlemen--interfere, somebody.’

Uttering these incoherent exclamations, Mr. Pickwick rushed between the

infuriated combatants just in time to receive the carpet-bag on one side

of his body, and the fire-shovel on the other. Whether the

representatives of the public feeling of Eatanswill were blinded by

animosity, or (being both acute reasoners) saw the advantage of having a

third party between them to bear all the blows, certain it is that they

paid not the slightest attention to Mr. Pickwick, but defying each other

with great spirit, plied the carpet-bag and the fire-shovel most

fearlessly. Mr. Pickwick would unquestionably have suffered severely for

his humane interference, if Mr. Weller, attracted by his master’s cries,

had not rushed in at the moment, and, snatching up a meal-sack,

effectually stopped the conflict by drawing it over the head and

shoulders of the mighty Pott, and clasping him tight round the

shoulders.

‘Take away that ‘ere bag from the t’other madman,’ said Sam to Ben Allen

and Bob Sawyer, who had done nothing but dodge round the group, each

with a tortoise-shell lancet in his hand, ready to bleed the first man

stunned. ‘Give it up, you wretched little creetur, or I’ll smother you

in it.’

Awed by these threats, and quite out of breath, the _Independent_

suffered himself to be disarmed; and Mr. Weller, removing the

extinguisher from Pott, set him free with a caution.

‘You take yourselves off to bed quietly,’ said Sam, ‘or I’ll put you

both in it, and let you fight it out vith the mouth tied, as I vould a

dozen sich, if they played these games. And you have the goodness to

come this here way, sir, if you please.’

Thus addressing his master, Sam took him by the arm, and led him off,

while the rival editors were severally removed to their beds by the

landlord, under the inspection of Mr. Bob Sawyer and Mr. Benjamin Allen;

breathing, as they went away, many sanguinary threats, and making vague

appointments for mortal combat next day. When they came to think it

over, however, it occurred to them that they could do it much better in

print, so they recommenced deadly hostilities without delay; and all

Eatanswill rung with their boldness--on paper.

They had taken themselves off in separate coaches, early next morning,

before the other travellers were stirring; and the weather having now

cleared up, the chaise companions once more turned their faces to

London.

CHAPTER LII. INVOLVING A SERIOUS CHANGE IN THE WELLER FAMILY, AND THE

UNTIMELY DOWNFALL OF MR. STIGGINS

Considering it a matter of delicacy to abstain from introducing either

Bob Sawyer or Ben Allen to the young couple, until they were fully

prepared to expect them, and wishing to spare Arabella’s feelings as

much as possible, Mr. Pickwick proposed that he and Sam should alight in

the neighbourhood of the George and Vulture, and that the two young men

should for the present take up their quarters elsewhere. To this they

very readily agreed, and the proposition was accordingly acted upon; Mr.

Ben Allen and Mr. Bob Sawyer betaking themselves to a sequestered pot-

shop on the remotest confines of the Borough, behind the bar door of

which their names had in other days very often appeared at the head of

long and complex calculations worked in white chalk.

‘Dear me, Mr. Weller,’ said the pretty housemaid, meeting Sam at the

door.

‘Dear _me_ I vish it vos, my dear,’ replied Sam, dropping behind, to let

his master get out of hearing. ‘Wot a sweet-lookin’ creetur you are,

Mary!’

‘Lor’, Mr. Weller, what nonsense you do talk!’ said Mary. ‘Oh! don’t,

Mr. Weller.’

‘Don’t what, my dear?’ said Sam.

‘Why, that,’ replied the pretty housemaid. ‘Lor, do get along with you.’

Thus admonishing him, the pretty housemaid pushed Sam against the wall,

declaring that he had tumbled her cap, and put her hair quite out of

curl.

‘And prevented what I was going to say, besides,’ added Mary. ‘There’s a

letter been waiting here for you four days; you hadn’t gone away, half

an hour, when it came; and more than that, it’s got “immediate,” on the

outside.’

‘Vere is it, my love?’ inquired Sam.

‘I took care of it, for you, or I dare say it would have been lost long

before this,’ replied Mary. ‘There, take it; it’s more than you

deserve.’

With these words, after many pretty little coquettish doubts and fears,

and wishes that she might not have lost it, Mary produced the letter

from behind the nicest little muslin tucker possible, and handed it to

Sam, who thereupon kissed it with much gallantry and devotion.

‘My goodness me!’ said Mary, adjusting the tucker, and feigning

unconsciousness, ‘you seem to have grown very fond of it all at once.’

To this Mr. Weller only replied by a wink, the intense meaning of which

no description could convey the faintest idea of; and, sitting himself

down beside Mary on a window-seat, opened the letter and glanced at the

contents.

‘Hollo!’ exclaimed Sam, ‘wot’s all this?’

‘Nothing the matter, I hope?’ said Mary, peeping over his shoulder.

‘Bless them eyes o’ yourn!’ said Sam, looking up.

‘Never mind my eyes; you had much better read your letter,’ said the

pretty housemaid; and as she said so, she made the eyes twinkle with

such slyness and beauty that they were perfectly irresistible.

Sam refreshed himself with a kiss, and read as follows:--

‘MARKIS GRAN ‘By DORKEN ‘Wensdy.

‘My DEAR SAMMLE,

‘I am wery sorry to have the pleasure of being a Bear of ill news your

Mother in law cort cold consekens of imprudently settin too long on the

damp grass in the rain a hearin of a shepherd who warnt able to leave

off till late at night owen to his having vound his-self up vith brandy

and vater and not being able to stop his-self till he got a little sober

which took a many hours to do the doctor says that if she’d svallo’d

varm brandy and vater artervards insted of afore she mightn’t have been

no vus her veels wos immedetly greased and everythink done to set her

agoin as could be inwented your father had hopes as she vould have

vorked round as usual but just as she wos a turnen the corner my boy she

took the wrong road and vent down hill vith a welocity you never see and

notvithstandin that the drag wos put on drectly by the medikel man it

wornt of no use at all for she paid the last pike at twenty minutes

afore six o’clock yesterday evenin havin done the jouney wery much under

the reglar time vich praps was partly owen to her haven taken in wery

little luggage by the vay your father says that if you vill come and see

me Sammy he vill take it as a wery great favor for I am wery lonely

Samivel N. B. he _vill _have it spelt that vay vich I say ant right and

as there is sich a many things to settle he is sure your guvner wont

object of course he vill not Sammy for I knows him better so he sends

his dooty in which I join and am Samivel infernally yours

‘TONY VELLER.’

‘Wot a incomprehensible letter,’ said Sam; ‘who’s to know wot it means,

vith all this he-ing and I-ing! It ain’t my father’s writin’, ‘cept this

here signater in print letters; that’s his.’

‘Perhaps he got somebody to write it for him, and signed it himself

afterwards,’ said the pretty housemaid.

‘Stop a minit,’ replied Sam, running over the letter again, and pausing

here and there, to reflect, as he did so. ‘You’ve hit it. The gen’l’m’n

as wrote it wos a-tellin’ all about the misfortun’ in a proper vay, and

then my father comes a-lookin’ over him, and complicates the whole

concern by puttin’ his oar in. That’s just the wery sort o’ thing he’d

do. You’re right, Mary, my dear.’

Having satisfied himself on this point, Sam read the letter all over,

once more, and, appearing to form a clear notion of its contents for the

first time, ejaculated thoughtfully, as he folded it up--

‘And so the poor creetur’s dead! I’m sorry for it. She warn’t a bad-

disposed ‘ooman, if them shepherds had let her alone. I’m wery sorry for

it.’

Mr. Weller uttered these words in so serious a manner, that the pretty

housemaid cast down her eyes and looked very grave.

‘Hows’ever,’ said Sam, putting the letter in his pocket with a gentle

sigh, ‘it wos to be--and wos, as the old lady said arter she’d married

the footman. Can’t be helped now, can it, Mary?’

Mary shook her head, and sighed too.

‘I must apply to the hemperor for leave of absence,’ said Sam.

Mary sighed again--the letter was so very affecting.

‘Good-bye!’ said Sam.

‘Good-bye,’ rejoined the pretty housemaid, turning her head away.

‘Well, shake hands, won’t you?’ said Sam.

The pretty housemaid put out a hand which, although it was a

housemaid’s, was a very small one, and rose to go.

‘I shan’t be wery long avay,’ said Sam.

‘You’re always away,’ said Mary, giving her head the slightest possible

toss in the air. ‘You no sooner come, Mr. Weller, than you go again.’

Mr. Weller drew the household beauty closer to him, and entered upon a

whispering conversation, which had not proceeded far, when she turned

her face round and condescended to look at him again. When they parted,

it was somehow or other indispensably necessary for her to go to her

room, and arrange the cap and curls before she could think of presenting

herself to her mistress; which preparatory ceremony she went off to

perform, bestowing many nods and smiles on Sam over the banisters as she

tripped upstairs.

‘I shan’t be avay more than a day, or two, Sir, at the furthest,’ said

Sam, when he had communicated to Mr. Pickwick the intelligence of his

father’s loss.

‘As long as may be necessary, Sam,’ replied Mr. Pickwick, ‘you have my

full permission to remain.’

Sam bowed.

‘You will tell your father, Sam, that if I can be of any assistance to

him in his present situation, I shall be most willing and ready to lend

him any aid in my power,’ said Mr. Pickwick.

‘Thank’ee, sir,’ rejoined Sam. ‘I’ll mention it, sir.’

And with some expressions of mutual good-will and interest, master and

man separated.

It was just seven o’clock when Samuel Weller, alighting from the box of

a stage-coach which passed through Dorking, stood within a few hundred

yards of the Marquis of Granby. It was a cold, dull evening; the little

street looked dreary and dismal; and the mahogany countenance of the

noble and gallant marquis seemed to wear a more sad and melancholy

expression than it was wont to do, as it swung to and fro, creaking

mournfully in the wind. The blinds were pulled down, and the shutters

partly closed; of the knot of loungers that usually collected about the

door, not one was to be seen; the place was silent and desolate.

Seeing nobody of whom he could ask any preliminary questions, Sam walked

softly in, and glancing round, he quickly recognised his parent in the

distance.

The widower was seated at a small round table in the little room behind

the bar, smoking a pipe, with his eyes intently fixed upon the fire. The

funeral had evidently taken place that day, for attached to his hat,

which he still retained on his head, was a hatband measuring about a

yard and a half in length, which hung over the top rail of the chair and

streamed negligently down. Mr. Weller was in a very abstracted and

contemplative mood. Notwithstanding that Sam called him by name several

times, he still continued to smoke with the same fixed and quiet

countenance, and was only roused ultimately by his son’s placing the

palm of his hand on his shoulder.

‘Sammy,’ said Mr. Weller, ‘you’re welcome.’

‘I’ve been a-callin’ to you half a dozen times,’ said Sam, hanging his

hat on a peg, ‘but you didn’t hear me.’

‘No, Sammy,’ replied Mr. Weller, again looking thoughtfully at the fire.

‘I was in a referee, Sammy.’

‘Wot about?’ inquired Sam, drawing his chair up to the fire.

‘In a referee, Sammy,’ replied the elder Mr. Weller, ‘regarding _her_,

Samivel.’ Here Mr. Weller jerked his head in the direction of Dorking

churchyard, in mute explanation that his words referred to the late Mrs.

Weller.

‘I wos a-thinkin’, Sammy,’ said Mr. Weller, eyeing his son, with great

earnestness, over his pipe, as if to assure him that however

extraordinary and incredible the declaration might appear, it was

nevertheless calmly and deliberately uttered. ‘I wos a-thinkin’, Sammy,

that upon the whole I wos wery sorry she wos gone.’

‘Vell, and so you ought to be,’ replied Sam.

Mr. Weller nodded his acquiescence in the sentiment, and again fastening

his eyes on the fire, shrouded himself in a cloud, and mused deeply.

‘Those wos wery sensible observations as she made, Sammy,’ said Mr.

Weller, driving the smoke away with his hand, after a long silence.

‘Wot observations?’ inquired Sam.

‘Them as she made, arter she was took ill,’ replied the old gentleman.

‘Wot was they?’

‘Somethin’ to this here effect. “Veller,” she says, “I’m afeered I’ve

not done by you quite wot I ought to have done; you’re a wery kind-

hearted man, and I might ha’ made your home more comfortabler. I begin

to see now,” she says, “ven it’s too late, that if a married ‘ooman

vishes to be religious, she should begin vith dischargin’ her dooties at

home, and makin’ them as is about her cheerful and happy, and that vile

she goes to church, or chapel, or wot not, at all proper times, she

should be wery careful not to con-wert this sort o’ thing into a excuse

for idleness or self-indulgence. I have done this,” she says, “and I’ve

vasted time and substance on them as has done it more than me; but I

hope ven I’m gone, Veller, that you’ll think on me as I wos afore I

know’d them people, and as I raly wos by natur.” ‘“Susan,” says I--I wos

took up wery short by this, Samivel; I von’t deny it, my boy--“Susan,” I

says, “you’ve been a wery good vife to me, altogether; don’t say nothin’

at all about it; keep a good heart, my dear; and you’ll live to see me

punch that ‘ere Stiggins’s head yet.” She smiled at this, Samivel,’ said

the old gentleman, stifling a sigh with his pipe, ‘but she died arter

all!’

‘Vell,’ said Sam, venturing to offer a little homely consolation, after

the lapse of three or four minutes, consumed by the old gentleman in

slowly shaking his head from side to side, and solemnly smoking, ‘vell,

gov’nor, ve must all come to it, one day or another.’

‘So we must, Sammy,’ said Mr. Weller the elder.

‘There’s a Providence in it all,’ said Sam.

‘O’ course there is,’ replied his father, with a nod of grave approval.

‘Wot ‘ud become of the undertakers vithout it, Sammy?’

Lost in the immense field of conjecture opened by this reflection, the

elder Mr. Weller laid his pipe on the table, and stirred the fire with a

meditative visage.

While the old gentleman was thus engaged, a very buxom-looking cook,

dressed in mourning, who had been bustling about, in the bar, glided

into the room, and bestowing many smirks of recognition upon Sam,

silently stationed herself at the back of his father’s chair, and

announced her presence by a slight cough, the which, being disregarded,

was followed by a louder one.

‘Hollo!’ said the elder Mr. Weller, dropping the poker as he looked

round, and hastily drew his chair away. ‘Wot’s the matter now?’

‘Have a cup of tea, there’s a good soul,’ replied the buxom female

coaxingly.

‘I von’t,’ replied Mr. Weller, in a somewhat boisterous manner. ‘I’ll

see you--’ Mr. Weller hastily checked himself, and added in a low tone,

‘furder fust.’

‘Oh, dear, dear! How adwersity does change people!’ said the lady,

looking upwards.

‘It’s the only thing ‘twixt this and the doctor as shall change my

condition,’ muttered Mr. Weller.

‘I really never saw a man so cross,’ said the buxom female.

‘Never mind. It’s all for my own good; vich is the reflection vith vich

the penitent school-boy comforted his feelin’s ven they flogged him,’

rejoined the old gentleman.

The buxom female shook her head with a compassionate and sympathising

air; and, appealing to Sam, inquired whether his father really ought not

to make an effort to keep up, and not give way to that lowness of

spirits.

‘You see, Mr. Samuel,’ said the buxom female, ‘as I was telling him

yesterday, he will feel lonely, he can’t expect but what he should, sir,

but he should keep up a good heart, because, dear me, I’m sure we all

pity his loss, and are ready to do anything for him; and there’s no

situation in life so bad, Mr. Samuel, that it can’t be mended. Which is

what a very worthy person said to me when my husband died.’ Here the

speaker, putting her hand before her mouth, coughed again, and looked

affectionately at the elder Mr. Weller.

‘As I don’t rekvire any o’ your conversation just now, mum, vill you

have the goodness to re-tire?’ inquired Mr. Weller, in a grave and

steady voice.

‘Well, Mr. Weller,’ said the buxom female, ‘I’m sure I only spoke to you

out of kindness.’

‘Wery likely, mum,’ replied Mr. Weller. ‘Samivel, show the lady out, and

shut the door after her.’

This hint was not lost upon the buxom female; for she at once left the

room, and slammed the door behind her, upon which Mr. Weller, senior,

falling back in his chair in a violent perspiration, said--

‘Sammy, if I wos to stop here alone vun week--only vun week, my boy--

that ‘ere ‘ooman ‘ud marry me by force and wiolence afore it was over.’

‘Wot! is she so wery fond on you?’ inquired Sam.

‘Fond!’ replied his father. ‘I can’t keep her avay from me. If I was

locked up in a fireproof chest vith a patent Brahmin, she’d find means

to get at me, Sammy.’

‘Wot a thing it is to be so sought arter!’ observed Sam, smiling.

‘I don’t take no pride out on it, Sammy,’ replied Mr. Weller, poking the

fire vehemently, ‘it’s a horrid sitiwation. I’m actiwally drove out o’

house and home by it. The breath was scarcely out o’ your poor mother-

in-law’s body, ven vun old ‘ooman sends me a pot o’ jam, and another a

pot o’ jelly, and another brews a blessed large jug o’ camomile-tea,

vich she brings in vith her own hands.’ Mr. Weller paused with an aspect

of intense disgust, and looking round, added in a whisper, ‘They wos all

widders, Sammy, all on ‘em, ‘cept the camomile-tea vun, as wos a single

young lady o’ fifty-three.’

Sam gave a comical look in reply, and the old gentleman having broken an

obstinate lump of coal, with a countenance expressive of as much

earnestness and malice as if it had been the head of one of the widows

last-mentioned, said:

‘In short, Sammy, I feel that I ain’t safe anyveres but on the box.’

‘How are you safer there than anyveres else?’ interrupted Sam.

‘’Cos a coachman’s a privileged indiwidual,’ replied Mr. Weller, looking

fixedly at his son. ‘’Cos a coachman may do vithout suspicion wot other

men may not; ‘cos a coachman may be on the wery amicablest terms with

eighty mile o’ females, and yet nobody think that he ever means to marry

any vun among ‘em. And wot other man can say the same, Sammy?’

‘Vell, there’s somethin’ in that,’ said Sam.

‘If your gov’nor had been a coachman,’ reasoned Mr. Weller, ‘do you

s’pose as that ‘ere jury ‘ud ever ha’ conwicted him, s’posin’ it

possible as the matter could ha’ gone to that extremity? They dustn’t

ha’ done it.’

‘Wy not?’ said Sam, rather disparagingly.

‘Wy not!’ rejoined Mr. Weller; ‘’cos it ‘ud ha’ gone agin their

consciences. A reg’lar coachman’s a sort o’ con-nectin’ link betwixt

singleness and matrimony, and every practicable man knows it.’

‘Wot! You mean, they’re gen’ral favorites, and nobody takes adwantage on

‘em, p’raps?’ said Sam.

His father nodded.

‘How it ever come to that ‘ere pass,’ resumed the parent Weller, ‘I

can’t say. Wy it is that long-stage coachmen possess such insiniwations,

and is alvays looked up to--a-dored I may say--by ev’ry young ‘ooman in

ev’ry town he vurks through, I don’t know. I only know that so it is.

It’s a regulation of natur--a dispensary, as your poor mother-in-law

used to say.’

‘A dispensation,’ said Sam, correcting the old gentleman.

‘Wery good, Samivel, a dispensation if you like it better,’ returned Mr.

Weller; ‘I call it a dispensary, and it’s always writ up so, at the

places vere they gives you physic for nothin’ in your own bottles;

that’s all.’

With these words, Mr. Weller refilled and relighted his pipe, and once

more summoning up a meditative expression of countenance, continued as

follows--

‘Therefore, my boy, as I do not see the adwisability o’ stoppin here to

be married vether I vant to or not, and as at the same time I do not

vish to separate myself from them interestin’ members o’ society

altogether, I have come to the determination o’ driving the Safety, and

puttin’ up vunce more at the Bell Savage, vich is my nat’ral born

element, Sammy.’

‘And wot’s to become o’ the bis’ness?’ inquired Sam.

‘The bis’ness, Samivel,’ replied the old gentleman, ‘good-vill, stock,

and fixters, vill be sold by private contract; and out o’ the money, two

hundred pound, agreeable to a rekvest o’ your mother-in-law’s to me, a

little afore she died, vill be invested in your name in--What do you

call them things agin?’

‘Wot things?’ inquired Sam.

‘Them things as is always a-goin’ up and down, in the city.’

‘Omnibuses?’ suggested Sam.

‘Nonsense,’ replied Mr. Weller. ‘Them things as is alvays a-

fluctooatin’, and gettin’ theirselves inwolved somehow or another vith

the national debt, and the chequers bill; and all that.’

‘Oh! the funds,’ said Sam.

‘Ah!’ rejoined Mr. Weller, ‘the funs; two hundred pounds o’ the money is

to be inwested for you, Samivel, in the funs; four and a half per cent.

reduced counsels, Sammy.’

‘Wery kind o’ the old lady to think o’ me,’ said Sam, ‘and I’m wery much

obliged to her.’

‘The rest will be inwested in my name,’ continued the elder Mr. Weller;

‘and wen I’m took off the road, it’ll come to you, so take care you

don’t spend it all at vunst, my boy, and mind that no widder gets a

inklin’ o’ your fortun’, or you’re done.’

Having delivered this warning, Mr. Weller resumed his pipe with a more

serene countenance; the disclosure of these matters appearing to have

eased his mind considerably.

‘Somebody’s a-tappin’ at the door,’ said Sam.

‘Let ‘em tap,’ replied his father, with dignity.

Sam acted upon the direction. There was another tap, and another, and

then a long row of taps; upon which Sam inquired why the tapper was not

admitted.

‘Hush,’ whispered Mr. Weller, with apprehensive looks, ‘don’t take no

notice on ‘em, Sammy, it’s vun o’ the widders, p’raps.’

No notice being taken of the taps, the unseen visitor, after a short

lapse, ventured to open the door and peep in. It was no female head that

was thrust in at the partially-opened door, but the long black locks and

red face of Mr. Stiggins. Mr. Weller’s pipe fell from his hands.

The reverend gentleman gradually opened the door by almost imperceptible

degrees, until the aperture was just wide enough to admit of the passage

of his lank body, when he glided into the room and closed it after him,

with great care and gentleness. Turning towards Sam, and raising his

hands and eyes in token of the unspeakable sorrow with which he regarded

the calamity that had befallen the family, he carried the high-backed

chair to his old corner by the fire, and, seating himself on the very

edge, drew forth a brown pocket-handkerchief, and applied the same to

his optics.

While this was going forward, the elder Mr. Weller sat back in his

chair, with his eyes wide open, his hands planted on his knees, and his

whole countenance expressive of absorbing and overwhelming astonishment.

Sam sat opposite him in perfect silence, waiting, with eager curiosity,

for the termination of the scene.

Mr. Stiggins kept the brown pocket-handkerchief before his eyes for some

minutes, moaning decently meanwhile, and then, mastering his feelings by

a strong effort, put it in his pocket and buttoned it up. After this, he

stirred the fire; after that, he rubbed his hands and looked at Sam.

‘Oh, my young friend,’ said Mr. Stiggins, breaking the silence, in a

very low voice, ‘here’s a sorrowful affliction!’

Sam nodded very slightly.

‘For the man of wrath, too!’ added Mr. Stiggins; ‘it makes a vessel’s

heart bleed!’

Mr. Weller was overheard by his son to murmur something relative to

making a vessel’s nose bleed; but Mr. Stiggins heard him not.

‘Do you know, young man,’ whispered Mr. Stiggins, drawing his chair

closer to Sam, ‘whether she has left Emanuel anything?’

‘Who’s he?’ inquired Sam.

‘The chapel,’ replied Mr. Stiggins; ‘our chapel; our fold, Mr. Samuel.’

‘She hasn’t left the fold nothin’, nor the shepherd nothin’, nor the

animals nothin’,’ said Sam decisively; ‘nor the dogs neither.’

Mr. Stiggins looked slily at Sam; glanced at the old gentleman, who was

sitting with his eyes closed, as if asleep; and drawing his chair still

nearer, said--

‘Nothing for _me_, Mr. Samuel?’

Sam shook his head.

‘I think there’s something,’ said Stiggins, turning as pale as he could

turn. ‘Consider, Mr. Samuel; no little token?’

‘Not so much as the vorth o’ that ‘ere old umberella o’ yourn,’ replied

Sam.

‘Perhaps,’ said Mr. Stiggins hesitatingly, after a few moments’ deep

thought, ‘perhaps she recommended me to the care of the man of wrath,

Mr. Samuel?’

‘I think that’s wery likely, from what he said,’ rejoined Sam; ‘he wos

a-speakin’ about you, jist now.’

‘Was he, though?’ exclaimed Stiggins, brightening up. ‘Ah! He’s changed,

I dare say. We might live very comfortably together now, Mr. Samuel, eh?

I could take care of his property when you are away--good care, you

see.’

Heaving a long-drawn sigh, Mr. Stiggins paused for a response. Sam

nodded, and Mr. Weller the elder gave vent to an extraordinary sound,

which, being neither a groan, nor a grunt, nor a gasp, nor a growl,

seemed to partake in some degree of the character of all four.

Mr. Stiggins, encouraged by this sound, which he understood to betoken

remorse or repentance, looked about him, rubbed his hands, wept, smiled,

wept again, and then, walking softly across the room to a well-

remembered shelf in one corner, took down a tumbler, and with great

deliberation put four lumps of sugar in it. Having got thus far, he

looked about him again, and sighed grievously; with that, he walked

softly into the bar, and presently returning with the tumbler half full

of pine-apple rum, advanced to the kettle which was singing gaily on the

hob, mixed his grog, stirred it, sipped it, sat down, and taking a long

and hearty pull at the rum-and-water, stopped for breath.

The elder Mr. Weller, who still continued to make various strange and

uncouth attempts to appear asleep, offered not a single word during

these proceedings; but when Stiggins stopped for breath, he darted upon

him, and snatching the tumbler from his hand, threw the remainder of the

rum-and-water in his face, and the glass itself into the grate. Then,

seizing the reverend gentleman firmly by the collar, he suddenly fell to

kicking him most furiously, accompanying every application of his top-

boot to Mr. Stiggins’s person, with sundry violent and incoherent

anathemas upon his limbs, eyes, and body.

‘Sammy,’ said Mr. Weller, ‘put my hat on tight for me.’

Sam dutifully adjusted the hat with the long hatband more firmly on his

father’s head, and the old gentleman, resuming his kicking with greater

agility than before, tumbled with Mr. Stiggins through the bar, and

through the passage, out at the front door, and so into the street--the

kicking continuing the whole way, and increasing in vehemence, rather

than diminishing, every time the top-boot was lifted.

It was a beautiful and exhilarating sight to see the red-nosed man

writhing in Mr. Weller’s grasp, and his whole frame quivering with

anguish as kick followed kick in rapid succession; it was a still more

exciting spectacle to behold Mr. Weller, after a powerful struggle,

immersing Mr. Stiggins’s head in a horse-trough full of water, and

holding it there, until he was half suffocated.

‘There!’ said Mr. Weller, throwing all his energy into one most

complicated kick, as he at length permitted Mr. Stiggins to withdraw his

head from the trough, ‘send any vun o’ them lazy shepherds here, and

I’ll pound him to a jelly first, and drownd him artervards! Sammy, help

me in, and fill me a small glass of brandy. I’m out o’ breath, my boy.’

CHAPTER LIII. COMPRISING THE FINAL EXIT OF MR. JINGLE AND JOB TROTTER,

WITH A GREAT MORNING OF BUSINESS IN GRAY’S INN SQUARE--CONCLUDING WITH A

DOUBLE KNOCK AT MR. PERKER’S DOOR

When Arabella, after some gentle preparation and many assurances that

there was not the least occasion for being low-spirited, was at length

made acquainted by Mr. Pickwick with the unsatisfactory result of his

visit to Birmingham, she burst into tears, and sobbing aloud, lamented

in moving terms that she should have been the unhappy cause of any

estrangement between a father and his son.

‘My dear girl,’ said Mr. Pickwick kindly, ‘it is no fault of yours. It

was impossible to foresee that the old gentleman would be so strongly

prepossessed against his son’s marriage, you know. I am sure,’ added Mr.

Pickwick, glancing at her pretty face, ‘he can have very little idea of

the pleasure he denies himself.’

‘Oh, my dear Mr. Pickwick,’ said Arabella, ‘what shall we do, if he

continues to be angry with us?’

‘Why, wait patiently, my dear, until he thinks better of it,’ replied

Mr. Pickwick cheerfully.

‘But, dear Mr. Pickwick, what is to become of Nathaniel if his father

withdraws his assistance?’ urged Arabella.

‘In that case, my love,’ rejoined Mr. Pickwick, ‘I will venture to

prophesy that he will find some other friend who will not be backward in

helping him to start in the world.’

The significance of this reply was not so well disguised by Mr. Pickwick

but that Arabella understood it. So, throwing her arms round his neck,

and kissing him affectionately, she sobbed louder than before.

‘Come, come,’ said Mr. Pickwick taking her hand, ‘we will wait here a

few days longer, and see whether he writes or takes any other notice of

your husband’s communication. If not, I have thought of half a dozen

plans, any one of which would make you happy at once. There, my dear,

there!’

With these words, Mr. Pickwick gently pressed Arabella’s hand, and bade

her dry her eyes, and not distress her husband. Upon which, Arabella,

who was one of the best little creatures alive, put her handkerchief in

her reticule, and by the time Mr. Winkle joined them, exhibited in full

lustre the same beaming smiles and sparkling eyes that had originally

captivated him.

‘This is a distressing predicament for these young people,’ thought Mr.

Pickwick, as he dressed himself next morning. ‘I’ll walk up to Perker’s,

and consult him about the matter.’

As Mr. Pickwick was further prompted to betake himself to Gray’s Inn

Square by an anxious desire to come to a pecuniary settlement with the

kind-hearted little attorney without further delay, he made a hurried

breakfast, and executed his intention so speedily, that ten o’clock had

not struck when he reached Gray’s Inn.

It still wanted ten minutes to the hour when he had ascended the

staircase on which Perker’s chambers were. The clerks had not arrived

yet, and he beguiled the time by looking out of the staircase window.

The healthy light of a fine October morning made even the dingy old

houses brighten up a little; some of the dusty windows actually looking

almost cheerful as the sun’s rays gleamed upon them. Clerk after clerk

hastened into the square by one or other of the entrances, and looking

up at the Hall clock, accelerated or decreased his rate of walking

according to the time at which his office hours nominally commenced; the

half-past nine o’clock people suddenly becoming very brisk, and the ten

o’clock gentlemen falling into a pace of most aristocratic slowness. The

clock struck ten, and clerks poured in faster than ever, each one in a

greater perspiration than his predecessor. The noise of unlocking and

opening doors echoed and re-echoed on every side; heads appeared as if

by magic in every window; the porters took up their stations for the

day; the slipshod laundresses hurried off; the postman ran from house to

house; and the whole legal hive was in a bustle.

‘You’re early, Mr. Pickwick,’ said a voice behind him.

‘Ah, Mr. Lowten,’ replied that gentleman, looking round, and recognising

his old acquaintance.

‘Precious warm walking, isn’t it?’ said Lowten, drawing a Bramah key

from his pocket, with a small plug therein, to keep the dust out.

‘You appear to feel it so,’ rejoined Mr. Pickwick, smiling at the clerk,

who was literally red-hot.

‘I’ve come along, rather, I can tell you,’ replied Lowten. ‘It went the

half hour as I came through the Polygon. I’m here before him, though, so

I don’t mind.’

Comforting himself with this reflection, Mr. Lowten extracted the plug

from the door-key; having opened the door, replugged and repocketed his

Bramah, and picked up the letters which the postman had dropped through

the box, he ushered Mr. Pickwick into the office. Here, in the twinkling

of an eye, he divested himself of his coat, put on a threadbare garment,

which he took out of a desk, hung up his hat, pulled forth a few sheets

of cartridge and blotting-paper in alternate layers, and, sticking a pen

behind his ear, rubbed his hands with an air of great satisfaction.

‘There, you see, Mr. Pickwick,’ he said, ‘now I’m complete. I’ve got my

office coat on, and my pad out, and let him come as soon as he likes.

You haven’t got a pinch of snuff about you, have you?’

‘No, I have not,’ replied Mr. Pickwick.

‘I’m sorry for it,’ said Lowten. ‘Never mind. I’ll run out presently,

and get a bottle of soda. Don’t I look rather queer about the eyes, Mr.

Pickwick?’

The individual appealed to, surveyed Mr. Lowten’s eyes from a distance,

and expressed his opinion that no unusual queerness was perceptible in

those features.

‘I’m glad of it,’ said Lowten. ‘We were keeping it up pretty tolerably

at the Stump last night, and I’m rather out of sorts this morning.

Perker’s been about that business of yours, by the bye.’

‘What business?’ inquired Mr. Pickwick. ‘Mrs. Bardell’s costs?’

‘No, I don’t mean that,’ replied Mr. Lowten. ‘About getting that

customer that we paid the ten shillings in the pound to the bill-

discounter for, on your account--to get him out of the Fleet, you know--

about getting him to Demerara.’

‘Oh, Mr. Jingle,’ said Mr. Pickwick hastily. ‘Yes. Well?’

‘Well, it’s all arranged,’ said Lowten, mending his pen. ‘The agent at

Liverpool said he had been obliged to you many times when you were in

business, and he would be glad to take him on your recommendation.’

‘That’s well,’ said Mr. Pickwick. ‘I am delighted to hear it.’

‘But I say,’ resumed Lowten, scraping the back of the pen preparatory to

making a fresh split, ‘what a soft chap that other is!’

‘Which other?’

‘Why, that servant, or friend, or whatever he is; you know, Trotter.’

‘Ah!’ said Mr. Pickwick, with a smile. ‘I always thought him the

reverse.’

‘Well, and so did I, from what little I saw of him,’ replied Lowten, ‘it

only shows how one may be deceived. What do you think of his going to

Demerara, too?’

‘What! And giving up what was offered him here!’ exclaimed Mr. Pickwick.

‘Treating Perker’s offer of eighteen bob a week, and a rise if he

behaved himself, like dirt,’ replied Lowten. ‘He said he must go along

with the other one, and so they persuaded Perker to write again, and

they’ve got him something on the same estate; not near so good, Perker

says, as a convict would get in New South Wales, if he appeared at his

trial in a new suit of clothes.’

‘Foolish fellow,’ said Mr. Pickwick, with glistening eyes. ‘Foolish

fellow.’

‘Oh, it’s worse than foolish; it’s downright sneaking, you know,’

replied Lowten, nibbing the pen with a contemptuous face. ‘He says that

he’s the only friend he ever had, and he’s attached to him, and all

that. Friendship’s a very good thing in its way--we are all very

friendly and comfortable at the Stump, for instance, over our grog,

where every man pays for himself; but damn hurting yourself for anybody

else, you know! No man should have more than two attachments--the first,

to number one, and the second to the ladies; that’s what I say--ha! ha!’

Mr. Lowten concluded with a loud laugh, half in jocularity, and half in

derision, which was prematurely cut short by the sound of Perker’s

footsteps on the stairs, at the first approach of which, he vaulted on

his stool with an agility most remarkable, and wrote intensely.

The greeting between Mr. Pickwick and his professional adviser was warm

and cordial; the client was scarcely ensconced in the attorney’s arm-

chair, however, when a knock was heard at the door, and a voice inquired

whether Mr. Perker was within.

‘Hark!’ said Perker, ‘that’s one of our vagabond friends--Jingle

himself, my dear Sir. Will you see him?’

‘What do you think?’ inquired Mr. Pickwick, hesitating.

‘Yes, I think you had better. Here, you Sir, what’s your name, walk in,

will you?’

In compliance with this unceremonious invitation, Jingle and Job walked

into the room, but, seeing Mr. Pickwick, stopped short in some

confusion.

‘Well,’ said Perker, ‘don’t you know that gentleman?’

‘Good reason to,’ replied Mr. Jingle, stepping forward. ‘Mr. Pickwick--

deepest obligations--life preserver--made a man of me--you shall never

repent it, Sir.’

‘I am happy to hear you say so,’ said Mr. Pickwick. ‘You look much

better.’

‘Thanks to you, sir--great change--Majesty’s Fleet--unwholesome place--

very,’ said Jingle, shaking his head. He was decently and cleanly

dressed, and so was Job, who stood bolt upright behind him, staring at

Mr. Pickwick with a visage of iron.

‘When do they go to Liverpool?’ inquired Mr. Pickwick, half aside to

Perker.

‘This evening, Sir, at seven o’clock,’ said Job, taking one step

forward. ‘By the heavy coach from the city, Sir.’

‘Are your places taken?’

‘They are, sir,’ replied Job.

‘You have fully made up your mind to go?’

‘I have sir,’ answered Job.

‘With regard to such an outfit as was indispensable for Jingle,’ said

Perker, addressing Mr. Pickwick aloud. ‘I have taken upon myself to make

an arrangement for the deduction of a small sum from his quarterly

salary, which, being made only for one year, and regularly remitted,

will provide for that expense. I entirely disapprove of your doing

anything for him, my dear sir, which is not dependent on his own

exertions and good conduct.’

‘Certainly,’ interposed Jingle, with great firmness. ‘Clear head--man of

the world--quite right--perfectly.’

‘By compounding with his creditor, releasing his clothes from the

pawnbroker’s, relieving him in prison, and paying for his passage,’

continued Perker, without noticing Jingle’s observation, ‘you have

already lost upwards of fifty pounds.’

‘Not lost,’ said Jingle hastily, ‘Pay it all--stick to business--cash

up--every farthing. Yellow fever, perhaps--can’t help that--if not--’

Here Mr. Jingle paused, and striking the crown of his hat with great

violence, passed his hand over his eyes, and sat down.

‘He means to say,’ said Job, advancing a few paces, ‘that if he is not

carried off by the fever, he will pay the money back again. If he lives,

he will, Mr. Pickwick. I will see it done. I know he will, Sir,’ said

Job, with energy. ‘I could undertake to swear it.’

‘Well, well,’ said Mr. Pickwick, who had been bestowing a score or two

of frowns upon Perker, to stop his summary of benefits conferred, which

the little attorney obstinately disregarded, ‘you must be careful not to

play any more desperate cricket matches, Mr. Jingle, or to renew your

acquaintance with Sir Thomas Blazo, and I have little doubt of your

preserving your health.’

Mr. Jingle smiled at this sally, but looked rather foolish

notwithstanding; so Mr. Pickwick changed the subject by saying--

‘You don’t happen to know, do you, what has become of another friend of

yours--a more humble one, whom I saw at Rochester?’

‘Dismal Jemmy?’ inquired Jingle.

‘Yes.’

Jingle shook his head.

‘Clever rascal--queer fellow, hoaxing genius--Job’s brother.’

‘Job’s brother!’ exclaimed Mr. Pickwick. ‘Well, now I look at him

closely, there _is_ a likeness.’

‘We were always considered like each other, Sir,’ said Job, with a

cunning look just lurking in the corners of his eyes, ‘only I was really

of a serious nature, and he never was. He emigrated to America, Sir, in

consequence of being too much sought after here, to be comfortable; and

has never been heard of since.’

‘That accounts for my not having received the “page from the romance of

real life,” which he promised me one morning when he appeared to be

contemplating suicide on Rochester Bridge, I suppose,’ said Mr.

Pickwick, smiling. ‘I need not inquire whether his dismal behaviour was

natural or assumed.’

‘He could assume anything, Sir,’ said Job. ‘You may consider yourself

very fortunate in having escaped him so easily. On intimate terms he

would have been even a more dangerous acquaintance than--’ Job looked at

Jingle, hesitated, and finally added, ‘than--than-myself even.’

‘A hopeful family yours, Mr. Trotter,’ said Perker, sealing a letter

which he had just finished writing.

‘Yes, Sir,’ replied Job. ‘Very much so.’

‘Well,’ said the little man, laughing, ‘I hope you are going to disgrace

it. Deliver this letter to the agent when you reach Liverpool, and let

me advise you, gentlemen, not to be too knowing in the West Indies. If

you throw away this chance, you will both richly deserve to be hanged,

as I sincerely trust you will be. And now you had better leave Mr.

Pickwick and me alone, for we have other matters to talk over, and time

is precious.’ As Perker said this, he looked towards the door, with an

evident desire to render the leave-taking as brief as possible.

It was brief enough on Mr. Jingle’s part. He thanked the little attorney

in a few hurried words for the kindness and promptitude with which he

had rendered his assistance, and, turning to his benefactor, stood for a

few seconds as if irresolute what to say or how to act. Job Trotter

relieved his perplexity; for, with a humble and grateful bow to Mr.

Pickwick, he took his friend gently by the arm, and led him away.

‘A worthy couple!’ said Perker, as the door closed behind them.

‘I hope they may become so,’ replied Mr. Pickwick. ‘What do you think?

Is there any chance of their permanent reformation?’

Perker shrugged his shoulders doubtfully, but observing Mr. Pickwick’s

anxious and disappointed look, rejoined--

‘Of course there is a chance. I hope it may prove a good one. They are

unquestionably penitent now; but then, you know, they have the

recollection of very recent suffering fresh upon them. What they may

become, when that fades away, is a problem that neither you nor I can

solve. However, my dear Sir,’ added Perker, laying his hand on Mr.

Pickwick’s shoulder, ‘your object is equally honourable, whatever the

result is. Whether that species of benevolence which is so very cautious

and long-sighted that it is seldom exercised at all, lest its owner

should be imposed upon, and so wounded in his self-love, be real charity

or a worldly counterfeit, I leave to wiser heads than mine to determine.

But if those two fellows were to commit a burglary to-morrow, my opinion

of this action would be equally high.’

With these remarks, which were delivered in a much more animated and

earnest manner than is usual in legal gentlemen, Perker drew his chair

to his desk, and listened to Mr. Pickwick’s recital of old Mr. Winkle’s

obstinacy.

‘Give him a week,’ said Perker, nodding his head prophetically.

‘Do you think he will come round?’ inquired Mr. Pickwick.

‘I think he will,’ rejoined Perker. ‘If not, we must try the young

lady’s persuasion; and that is what anybody but you would have done at

first.’

Mr. Perker was taking a pinch of snuff with various grotesque

contractions of countenance, eulogistic of the persuasive powers

appertaining unto young ladies, when the murmur of inquiry and answer

was heard in the outer office, and Lowten tapped at the door.

‘Come in!’ cried the little man.

The clerk came in, and shut the door after him, with great mystery.

‘What’s the matter?’ inquired Perker.

‘You’re wanted, Sir.’

‘Who wants me?’

Lowten looked at Mr. Pickwick, and coughed.

‘Who wants me? Can’t you speak, Mr. Lowten?’

‘Why, sir,’ replied Lowten, ‘it’s Dodson; and Fogg is with him.’

‘Bless my life!’ said the little man, looking at his watch, ‘I appointed

them to be here at half-past eleven, to settle that matter of yours,

Pickwick. I gave them an undertaking on which they sent down your

discharge; it’s very awkward, my dear Sir; what will you do? Would you

like to step into the next room?’

The next room being the identical room in which Messrs. Dodson & Fogg

were, Mr. Pickwick replied that he would remain where he was: the more

especially as Messrs. Dodson & Fogg ought to be ashamed to look him in

the face, instead of his being ashamed to see them. Which latter

circumstance he begged Mr. Perker to note, with a glowing countenance

and many marks of indignation.

‘Very well, my dear Sir, very well,’ replied Perker, ‘I can only say

that if you expect either Dodson or Fogg to exhibit any symptom of shame

or confusion at having to look you, or anybody else, in the face, you

are the most sanguine man in your expectations that I ever met with.

Show them in, Mr. Lowten.’

Mr. Lowten disappeared with a grin, and immediately returned ushering in

the firm, in due form of precedence--Dodson first, and Fogg afterwards.

‘You have seen Mr. Pickwick, I believe?’ said Perker to Dodson,

inclining his pen in the direction where that gentleman was seated.

‘How do you do, Mr. Pickwick?’ said Dodson, in a loud voice.

‘Dear me,’ cried Fogg, ‘how do you do, Mr. Pickwick? I hope you are

well, Sir. I thought I knew the face,’ said Fogg, drawing up a chair,

and looking round him with a smile.

Mr. Pickwick bent his head very slightly, in answer to these

salutations, and, seeing Fogg pull a bundle of papers from his coat

pocket, rose and walked to the window.

‘There’s no occasion for Mr. Pickwick to move, Mr. Perker,’ said Fogg,

untying the red tape which encircled the little bundle, and smiling

again more sweetly than before. ‘Mr. Pickwick is pretty well acquainted

with these proceedings. There are no secrets between us, I think. He!

he! he!’

‘Not many, I think,’ said Dodson. ‘Ha! ha! ha!’ Then both the partners

laughed together--pleasantly and cheerfully, as men who are going to

receive money often do.

‘We shall make Mr. Pickwick pay for peeping,’ said Fogg, with

considerable native humour, as he unfolded his papers. ‘The amount of

the taxed costs is one hundred and thirty-three, six, four, Mr. Perker.’

There was a great comparing of papers, and turning over of leaves, by

Fogg and Perker, after this statement of profit and loss. Meanwhile,

Dodson said, in an affable manner, to Mr. Pickwick--

‘I don’t think you are looking quite so stout as when I had the pleasure

of seeing you last, Mr. Pickwick.’

‘Possibly not, Sir,’ replied Mr. Pickwick, who had been flashing forth

looks of fierce indignation, without producing the smallest effect on

either of the sharp practitioners; ‘I believe I am not, Sir. I have been

persecuted and annoyed by scoundrels of late, Sir.’

Perker coughed violently, and asked Mr. Pickwick whether he wouldn’t

like to look at the morning paper. To which inquiry Mr. Pickwick

returned a most decided negative.