Being very full of Mr. Pickwick’s application, and highly pleased with
the compliment he had paid me, it will be readily supposed that long
before our next night of meeting I communicated it to my three friends,
who unanimously voted his admission into our body. We all looked forward
with some impatience to the occasion which would enroll him among us, but
I am greatly mistaken if Jack Redburn and myself were not by many degrees
the most impatient of the party.
At length the night came, and a few minutes after ten Mr. Pickwick’s
knock was heard at the street-door. He was shown into a lower room, and
I directly took my crooked stick and went to accompany him up-stairs, in
order that he might be presented with all honour and formality.
‘Mr. Pickwick,’ said I, on entering the room, ‘I am rejoiced to see
you,—rejoiced to believe that this is but the opening of a long series of
visits to this house, and but the beginning of a close and lasting
friendship.’
That gentleman made a suitable reply with a cordiality and frankness
peculiarly his own, and glanced with a smile towards two persons behind
the door, whom I had not at first observed, and whom I immediately
recognised as Mr. Samuel Weller and his father.
It was a warm evening, but the elder Mr. Weller was attired,
notwithstanding, in a most capacious greatcoat, and his chin enveloped in
a large speckled shawl, such as is usually worn by stage coachmen on
active service. He looked very rosy and very stout, especially about the
legs, which appeared to have been compressed into his top-boots with some
difficulty. His broad-brimmed hat he held under his left arm, and with
the forefinger of his right hand he touched his forehead a great many
times in acknowledgment of my presence.
‘I am very glad to see you in such good health, Mr. Weller,’ said I.
‘Why, thankee, sir,’ returned Mr. Weller, ‘the axle an’t broke yet. We
keeps up a steady pace,—not too sewere, but vith a moderate degree o’
friction,—and the consekens is that ve’re still a runnin’ and comes in to
the time reg’lar.—My son Samivel, sir, as you may have read on in
history,’ added Mr. Weller, introducing his first-born.
I received Sam very graciously, but before he could say a word his father
struck in again.
‘Samivel Veller, sir,’ said the old gentleman, ‘has conferred upon me the
ancient title o’ grandfather vich had long laid dormouse, and wos s’posed
to be nearly hex-tinct in our family. Sammy, relate a anecdote o’ vun o’
them boys,—that ’ere little anecdote about young Tony sayin’ as he
_would_ smoke a pipe unbeknown to his mother.’
‘Be quiet, can’t you?’ said Sam; ‘I never see such a old magpie—never!’
[Picture: Tony Weller and his Grandson]
‘That ’ere Tony is the blessedest boy,’ said Mr. Weller, heedless of this
rebuff, ‘the blessedest boy as ever _I_ see in _my_ days! of all the
charmin’est infants as ever I heerd tell on, includin’ them as was
kivered over by the robin-redbreasts arter they’d committed sooicide with
blackberries, there never wos any like that ’ere little Tony. He’s
alvays a playin’ vith a quart pot, that boy is! To see him a settin’
down on the doorstep pretending to drink out of it, and fetching a long
breath artervards, and smoking a bit of firevood, and sayin’, “Now I’m
grandfather,”—to see him a doin’ that at two year old is better than any
play as wos ever wrote. “Now I’m grandfather!” He wouldn’t take a pint
pot if you wos to make him a present on it, but he gets his quart, and
then he says, “Now I’m grandfather!”’
Mr. Weller was so overpowered by this picture that he straightway fell
into a most alarming fit of coughing, which must certainly have been
attended with some fatal result but for the dexterity and promptitude of
Sam, who, taking a firm grasp of the shawl just under his father’s chin,
shook him to and fro with great violence, at the same time administering
some smart blows between his shoulders. By this curious mode of
treatment Mr. Weller was finally recovered, but with a very crimson face,
and in a state of great exhaustion.
‘He’ll do now, Sam,’ said Mr. Pickwick, who had been in some alarm
himself.
‘He’ll do, sir!’ cried Sam, looking reproachfully at his parent. ‘Yes,
he _will_ do one o’ these days,—he’ll do for his-self and then he’ll wish
he hadn’t. Did anybody ever see sich a inconsiderate old file,—laughing
into conwulsions afore company, and stamping on the floor as if he’d
brought his own carpet vith him and wos under a wager to punch the
pattern out in a given time? He’ll begin again in a minute. There—he’s
a goin’ off—I said he would!’
In fact, Mr. Weller, whose mind was still running upon his precocious
grandson, was seen to shake his head from side to side, while a laugh,
working like an earthquake, below the surface, produced various
extraordinary appearances in his face, chest, and shoulders,—the more
alarming because unaccompanied by any noise whatever. These emotions,
however, gradually subsided, and after three or four short relapses he
wiped his eyes with the cuff of his coat, and looked about him with
tolerable composure.
‘Afore the governor vith-draws,’ said Mr. Weller, ‘there is a pint,
respecting vich Sammy has a qvestion to ask. Vile that qvestion is a
perwadin’ this here conwersation, p’raps the genl’men vill permit me to
re-tire.’
‘Wot are you goin’ away for?’ demanded Sam, seizing his father by the
coat-tail.
‘I never see such a undootiful boy as you, Samivel,’ returned Mr. Weller.
‘Didn’t you make a solemn promise, amountin’ almost to a speeches o’ wow,
that you’d put that ’ere qvestion on my account?’
‘Well, I’m agreeable to do it,’ said Sam, ‘but not if you go cuttin’ away
like that, as the bull turned round and mildly observed to the drover ven
they wos a goadin’ him into the butcher’s door. The fact is, sir,’ said
Sam, addressing me, ‘that he wants to know somethin’ respectin’ that ’ere
lady as is housekeeper here.’
‘Ay. What is that?’
‘Vy, sir,’ said Sam, grinning still more, ‘he wishes to know vether she—’
‘In short,’ interposed old Mr. Weller decisively, a perspiration breaking
out upon his forehead, ‘vether that ’ere old creetur is or is not a
widder.’
Mr. Pickwick laughed heartily, and so did I, as I replied decisively,
that ‘my housekeeper was a spinster.’
‘There!’ cried Sam, ‘now you’re satisfied. You hear she’s a spinster.’
‘A wot?’ said his father, with deep scorn.
‘A spinster,’ replied Sam.
Mr. Weller looked very hard at his son for a minute or two, and then
said,
‘Never mind vether she makes jokes or not, that’s no matter. Wot I say
is, is that ’ere female a widder, or is she not?’
‘Wot do you mean by her making jokes?’ demanded Sam, quite aghast at the
obscurity of his parent’s speech.
‘Never you mind, Samivel,’ returned Mr. Weller gravely; ‘puns may be wery
good things or they may be wery bad ’uns, and a female may be none the
better or she may be none the vurse for making of ’em; that’s got nothing
to do vith widders.’
‘Wy now,’ said Sam, looking round, ‘would anybody believe as a man at his
time o’ life could be running his head agin spinsters and punsters being
the same thing?’
‘There an’t a straw’s difference between ’em,’ said Mr. Weller. ‘Your
father didn’t drive a coach for so many years, not to be ekal to his own
langvidge as far as _that_ goes, Sammy.’
Avoiding the question of etymology, upon which the old gentleman’s mind
was quite made up, he was several times assured that the housekeeper had
never been married. He expressed great satisfaction on hearing this, and
apologised for the question, remarking that he had been greatly terrified
by a widow not long before, and that his natural timidity was increased
in consequence.
‘It wos on the rail,’ said Mr. Weller, with strong emphasis; ‘I wos a
goin’ down to Birmingham by the rail, and I wos locked up in a close
carriage vith a living widder. Alone we wos; the widder and me wos
alone; and I believe it wos only because we _wos_ alone and there wos no
clergyman in the conwayance, that that ’ere widder didn’t marry me afore
ve reached the half-way station. Ven I think how she began a screaming
as we wos a goin’ under them tunnels in the dark,—how she kept on a
faintin’ and ketchin’ hold o’ me,—and how I tried to bust open the door
as was tight-locked and perwented all escape—Ah! It was a awful thing,
most awful!’
Mr. Weller was so very much overcome by this retrospect that he was
unable, until he had wiped his brow several times, to return any reply to
the question whether he approved of railway communication,
notwithstanding that it would appear from the answer which he ultimately
gave, that he entertained strong opinions on the subject.
‘I con-sider,’ said Mr. Weller, ‘that the rail is unconstitootional and
an inwaser o’ priwileges, and I should wery much like to know what that
’ere old Carter as once stood up for our liberties and wun ’em too,—I
should like to know wot he vould say, if he wos alive now, to Englishmen
being locked up vith widders, or with anybody again their wills. Wot a
old Carter would have said, a old Coachman may say, and I as-sert that in
that pint o’ view alone, the rail is an inwaser. As to the comfort,
vere’s the comfort o’ sittin’ in a harm-cheer lookin’ at brick walls or
heaps o’ mud, never comin’ to a public-house, never seein’ a glass o’
ale, never goin’ through a pike, never meetin’ a change o’ no kind
(horses or othervise), but alvays comin’ to a place, ven you come to one
at all, the wery picter o’ the last, vith the same p’leesemen standing
about, the same blessed old bell a ringin’, the same unfort’nate people
standing behind the bars, a waitin’ to be let in; and everythin’ the same
except the name, vich is wrote up in the same sized letters as the last
name, and vith the same colours. As to the _h_onour and dignity o’
travellin’, vere can that be vithout a coachman; and wot’s the rail to
sich coachmen and guards as is sometimes forced to go by it, but a
outrage and a insult? As to the pace, wot sort o’ pace do you think I,
Tony Veller, could have kept a coach goin’ at, for five hundred thousand
pound a mile, paid in adwance afore the coach was on the road? And as to
the ingein,—a nasty, wheezin’, creakin’, gaspin’, puffin’, bustin’
monster, alvays out o’ breath, vith a shiny green-and-gold back, like a
unpleasant beetle in that ’ere gas magnifier,—as to the ingein as is
alvays a pourin’ out red-hot coals at night, and black smoke in the day,
the sensiblest thing it does, in my opinion, is, ven there’s somethin’ in
the vay, and it sets up that ’ere frightful scream vich seems to say,
“Now here’s two hundred and forty passengers in the wery greatest
extremity o’ danger, and here’s their two hundred and forty screams in
vun!”’
By this time I began to fear that my friends would be rendered impatient
by my protracted absence. I therefore begged Mr. Pickwick to accompany
me up-stairs, and left the two Mr. Wellers in the care of the
housekeeper, laying strict injunctions upon her to treat them with all
possible hospitality.