'Nothing,' rejoined Mr. Pickwick. 'You have delivered the little parcel
I gave you for your old landlord, Sam?'
'I have, Sir,' replied Sam. 'He bust out a-cryin', Sir, and said you
wos wery gen'rous and thoughtful, and he only wished you could have
him innockilated for a gallopin' consumption, for his old friend as
had lived here so long wos dead, and he'd noweres to look for another.'
'Poor fellow, poor fellow!' said Mr. Pickwick. 'God bless you, my
friends!'
As Mr. Pickwick uttered this adieu, the crowd raised a loud shout. Many
among them were pressing forward to shake him by the hand again, when he
drew his arm through Perker's, and hurried from the prison, far more sad
and melancholy, for the moment, than when he had first entered it. Alas!
how many sad and unhappy beings had he left behind!
A happy evening was that for at least one party in the George and
Vulture; and light and cheerful were two of the hearts that emerged from
its hospitable door next morning. The owners thereof were Mr. Pickwick
and Sam Weller, the former of whom was speedily deposited inside a
comfortable post-coach, with a little dickey behind, in which the latter
mounted with great agility.
'Sir,' called out Mr. Weller to his master.
'Well, Sam,' replied Mr. Pickwick, thrusting his head out of the window.
'I wish them horses had been three months and better in the Fleet, Sir.'
'Why, Sam?' inquired Mr. Pickwick.
'Wy, Sir,' exclaimed Mr. Weller, rubbing his hands, 'how they would go
if they had been!'
CHAPTER XLVIII. RELATES HOW Mr. PICKWICK, WITH THE ASSISTANCE OF SAMUEL
WELLER, ESSAYED TO SOFTEN THE HEART OF Mr. BENJAMIN ALLEN, AND TO
MOLLIFY THE WRATH OF Mr. ROBERT SAWYER
Mr. Ben Allen and Mr. Bob Sawyer sat together in the little surgery
behind the shop, discussing minced veal and future prospects, when the
discourse, not unnaturally, turned upon the practice acquired by Bob the
aforesaid, and his present chances of deriving a competent independence
from the honourable profession to which he had devoted himself.
'Which, I think,' observed Mr. Bob Sawyer, pursuing the thread of the
subject--'which, I think, Ben, are rather dubious.'
'What's rather dubious?' inquired Mr. Ben Allen, at the same time
sharpening his intellect with a draught of beer. 'What's dubious?'
'Why, the chances,' responded Mr. Bob Sawyer.
'I forgot,' said Mr. Ben Allen. 'The beer has reminded me that I forgot,
Bob--yes; they ARE dubious.'
'It's wonderful how the poor people patronise me,' said Mr. Bob Sawyer
reflectively. 'They knock me up, at all hours of the night; they take
medicine to an extent which I should have conceived impossible; they put
on blisters and leeches with a perseverance worthy of a better cause;
they make additions to their families, in a manner which is quite awful.
Six of those last-named little promissory notes, all due on the same
day, Ben, and all intrusted to me!'
'It's very gratifying, isn't it?' said Mr. Ben Allen, holding his plate
for some more minced veal.
'Oh, very,' replied Bob; 'only not quite so much so as the confidence
of patients with a shilling or two to spare would be. This business was
capitally described in the advertisement, Ben. It is a practice, a very
extensive practice--and that's all.'
'Bob,' said Mr. Ben Allen, laying down his knife and fork, and fixing
his eyes on the visage of his friend, 'Bob, I'll tell you what it is.'
'What is it?' inquired Mr. Bob Sawyer.
'You must make yourself, with as little delay as possible, master of
Arabella's one thousand pounds.'
'Three per cent. consolidated bank annuities, now standing in her
name in the book or books of the governor and company of the Bank of
England,' added Bob Sawyer, in legal phraseology.
'Exactly so,' said Ben. 'She has it when she comes of age, or marries.
She wants a year of coming of age, and if you plucked up a spirit she
needn't want a month of being married.'
'She's a very charming and delightful creature,' quoth Mr. Robert
Sawyer, in reply; 'and has only one fault that I know of, Ben. It
happens, unfortunately, that that single blemish is a want of taste. She
don't like me.'
'It's my opinion that she don't know what she does like,' said Mr. Ben
Allen contemptuously.
'Perhaps not,' remarked Mr. Bob Sawyer. 'But it's my opinion that she
does know what she doesn't like, and that's of more importance.'
'I wish,' said Mr. Ben Allen, setting his teeth together, and speaking
more like a savage warrior who fed on raw wolf's flesh which he carved
with his fingers, than a peaceable young gentleman who ate minced veal
with a knife and fork--'I wish I knew whether any rascal really has been
tampering with her, and attempting to engage her affections. I think I
should assassinate him, Bob.'
'I'd put a bullet in him, if I found him out,' said Mr. Sawyer, stopping
in the course of a long draught of beer, and looking malignantly out
of the porter pot. 'If that didn't do his business, I'd extract it
afterwards, and kill him that way.'
Mr. Benjamin Allen gazed abstractedly on his friend for some minutes in
silence, and then said--
'You have never proposed to her, point-blank, Bob?'
'No. Because I saw it would be of no use,' replied Mr. Robert Sawyer.
'You shall do it, before you are twenty-four hours older,' retorted Ben,
with desperate calmness. 'She shall have you, or I'll know the reason
why. I'll exert my authority.'
'Well,' said Mr. Bob Sawyer, 'we shall see.'
'We shall see, my friend,' replied Mr. Ben Allen fiercely. He paused for
a few seconds, and added in a voice broken by emotion, 'You have loved
her from a child, my friend. You loved her when we were boys at school
together, and, even then, she was wayward and slighted your young
feelings. Do you recollect, with all the eagerness of a child's love,
one day pressing upon her acceptance, two small caraway-seed biscuits
and one sweet apple, neatly folded into a circular parcel with the leaf
of a copy-book?'
'I do,' replied Bob Sawyer.
'She slighted that, I think?' said Ben Allen.
'She did,' rejoined Bob. 'She said I had kept the parcel so long in the
pockets of my corduroys, that the apple was unpleasantly warm.'
'I remember,' said Mr. Allen gloomily. 'Upon which we ate it ourselves,
in alternate bites.'
Bob Sawyer intimated his recollection of the circumstance last alluded
to, by a melancholy frown; and the two friends remained for some time
absorbed, each in his own meditations.
While these observations were being exchanged between Mr. Bob Sawyer and
Mr. Benjamin Allen; and while the boy in the gray livery, marvelling at
the unwonted prolongation of the dinner, cast an anxious look, from
time to time, towards the glass door, distracted by inward misgivings
regarding the amount of minced veal which would be ultimately reserved
for his individual cravings; there rolled soberly on through the streets
of Bristol, a private fly, painted of a sad green colour, drawn by a
chubby sort of brown horse, and driven by a surly-looking man with his
legs dressed like the legs of a groom, and his body attired in the coat
of a coachman. Such appearances are common to many vehicles belonging
to, and maintained by, old ladies of economic habits; and in this
vehicle sat an old lady who was its mistress and proprietor.
'Martin!' said the old lady, calling to the surly man, out of the front
window.
'Well?' said the surly man, touching his hat to the old lady.
'Mr. Sawyer's,' said the old lady.
'I was going there,' said the surly man.
The old lady nodded the satisfaction which this proof of the surly man's
foresight imparted to her feelings; and the surly man giving a smart
lash to the chubby horse, they all repaired to Mr. Bob Sawyer's
together.
'Martin!' said the old lady, when the fly stopped at the door of Mr.
Robert Sawyer, late Nockemorf.
'Well?' said Martin.
'Ask the lad to step out, and mind the horse.'
'I'm going to mind the horse myself,' said Martin, laying his whip on
the roof of the fly.
'I can't permit it, on any account,' said the old lady; 'your testimony
will be very important, and I must take you into the house with me. You
must not stir from my side during the whole interview. Do you hear?'
'I hear,' replied Martin.
'Well; what are you stopping for?'
'Nothing,' replied Martin. So saying, the surly man leisurely descended
from the wheel, on which he had been poising himself on the tops of the
toes of his right foot, and having summoned the boy in the gray livery,
opened the coach door, flung down the steps, and thrusting in a hand
enveloped in a dark wash-leather glove, pulled out the old lady with as
much unconcern in his manner as if she were a bandbox.
'Dear me!' exclaimed the old lady. 'I am so flurried, now I have got
here, Martin, that I'm all in a tremble.'
Mr. Martin coughed behind the dark wash-leather gloves, but expressed
no sympathy; so the old lady, composing herself, trotted up Mr. Bob
Sawyer's steps, and Mr. Martin followed. Immediately on the old lady's
entering the shop, Mr. Benjamin Allen and Mr. Bob Sawyer, who had been
putting the spirits-and-water out of sight, and upsetting nauseous drugs
to take off the smell of the tobacco smoke, issued hastily forth in a
transport of pleasure and affection.
'My dear aunt,' exclaimed Mr. Ben Allen, 'how kind of you to look in
upon us! Mr. Sawyer, aunt; my friend Mr. Bob Sawyer whom I have spoken
to you about, regarding--you know, aunt.' And here Mr. Ben Allen, who
was not at the moment extraordinarily sober, added the word 'Arabella,'
in what was meant to be a whisper, but which was an especially audible
and distinct tone of speech which nobody could avoid hearing, if anybody
were so disposed.
'My dear Benjamin,' said the old lady, struggling with a great shortness
of breath, and trembling from head to foot, 'don't be alarmed, my dear,
but I think I had better speak to Mr. Sawyer, alone, for a moment. Only
for one moment.'
'Bob,' said Mr. Allen, 'will you take my aunt into the surgery?'
'Certainly,' responded Bob, in a most professional voice. 'Step this
way, my dear ma'am. Don't be frightened, ma'am. We shall be able to set
you to rights in a very short time, I have no doubt, ma'am. Here, my
dear ma'am. Now then!' With this, Mr. Bob Sawyer having handed the old
lady to a chair, shut the door, drew another chair close to her, and
waited to hear detailed the symptoms of some disorder from which he saw
in perspective a long train of profits and advantages.
The first thing the old lady did, was to shake her head a great many
times, and began to cry.
'Nervous,' said Bob Sawyer complacently. 'Camphor-julep and water three
times a day, and composing draught at night.'
'I don't know how to begin, Mr. Sawyer,' said the old lady. 'It is so
very painful and distressing.'
'You need not begin, ma'am,' rejoined Mr. Bob Sawyer. 'I can anticipate
all you would say. The head is in fault.'
'I should be very sorry to think it was the heart,' said the old lady,
with a slight groan.
'Not the slightest danger of that, ma'am,' replied Bob Sawyer. 'The
stomach is the primary cause.'
'Mr. Sawyer!' exclaimed the old lady, starting.
'Not the least doubt of it, ma'am,' rejoined Bob, looking wondrous wise.
'Medicine, in time, my dear ma'am, would have prevented it all.'
'Mr. Sawyer,' said the old lady, more flurried than before, 'this
conduct is either great impertinence to one in my situation, Sir, or
it arises from your not understanding the object of my visit. If it had
been in the power of medicine, or any foresight I could have used, to
prevent what has occurred, I should certainly have done so. I had
better see my nephew at once,' said the old lady, twirling her reticule
indignantly, and rising as she spoke.
'Stop a moment, ma'am,' said Bob Sawyer; 'I'm afraid I have not
understood you. What IS the matter, ma'am?'
'My niece, Mr. Sawyer,' said the old lady: 'your friend's sister.'
'Yes, ma'am,' said Bob, all impatience; for the old lady, although much
agitated, spoke with the most tantalising deliberation, as old ladies
often do. 'Yes, ma'am.'
'Left my home, Mr. Sawyer, three days ago, on a pretended visit to my
sister, another aunt of hers, who keeps the large boarding-school, just
beyond the third mile-stone, where there is a very large laburnum-tree
and an oak gate,' said the old lady, stopping in this place to dry her
eyes.
'Oh, devil take the laburnum-tree, ma'am!' said Bob, quite forgetting
his professional dignity in his anxiety. 'Get on a little faster; put a
little more steam on, ma'am, pray.'
'This morning,' said the old lady slowly--'this morning, she--'
'She came back, ma'am, I suppose,' said Bob, with great animation. 'Did
she come back?'
'No, she did not; she wrote,' replied the old lady.
'What did she say?' inquired Bob eagerly.
'She said, Mr. Sawyer,' replied the old lady--'and it is this I want to
