bad spectacles we must have worn, not to have discovered it before.'
'I don't understand it,' said Mr. Pickwick, ruminating; 'I cannot really
understand it.'
'It's easy enough to understand it,' replied the choleric old gentleman.
'If you had been a younger man, you would have been in the secret long
ago; and besides,' added Wardle, after a moment's hesitation, 'the truth
is, that, knowing nothing of this matter, I have rather pressed Emily
for four or five months past, to receive favourably (if she could; I
would never attempt to force a girl's inclinations) the addresses of
a young gentleman down in our neighbourhood. I have no doubt that,
girl-like, to enhance her own value and increase the ardour of Mr.
Snodgrass, she has represented this matter in very glowing colours,
and that they have both arrived at the conclusion that they are a
terribly-persecuted pair of unfortunates, and have no resource but
clandestine matrimony, or charcoal. Now the question is, what's to be
done?'
'What have YOU done?' inquired Mr. Pickwick.
'I!'
'I mean what did you do when your married daughter told you this?'
'Oh, I made a fool of myself of course,' rejoined Wardle.
'Just so,' interposed Perker, who had accompanied this dialogue with
sundry twitchings of his watch-chain, vindictive rubbings of his nose,
and other symptoms of impatience. 'That's very natural; but how?'
'I went into a great passion and frightened my mother into a fit,' said
Wardle.
'That was judicious,' remarked Perker; 'and what else?'
'I fretted and fumed all next day, and raised a great disturbance,'
rejoined the old gentleman. 'At last I got tired of rendering myself
unpleasant and making everybody miserable; so I hired a carriage at
Muggleton, and, putting my own horses in it, came up to town, under
pretence of bringing Emily to see Arabella.'
'Miss Wardle is with you, then?' said Mr. Pickwick.
'To be sure she is,' replied Wardle. 'She is at Osborne's Hotel in the
Adelphi at this moment, unless your enterprising friend has run away
with her since I came out this morning.'
'You are reconciled then?' said Perker.
'Not a bit of it,' answered Wardle; 'she has been crying and moping ever
since, except last night, between tea and supper, when she made a great
parade of writing a letter that I pretended to take no notice of.'
'You want my advice in this matter, I suppose?' said Perker, looking
from the musing face of Mr. Pickwick to the eager countenance of Wardle,
and taking several consecutive pinches of his favourite stimulant.
'I suppose so,' said Wardle, looking at Mr. Pickwick.
'Certainly,' replied that gentleman.
'Well then,' said Perker, rising and pushing his chair back, 'my advice
is, that you both walk away together, or ride away, or get away by some
means or other, for I'm tired of you, and just talk this matter over
between you. If you have not settled it by the next time I see you, I'll
tell you what to do.'
'This is satisfactory,' said Wardle, hardly knowing whether to smile or
be offended.
'Pooh, pooh, my dear Sir,' returned Perker. 'I know you both a great
deal better than you know yourselves. You have settled it already, to
all intents and purposes.'
Thus expressing himself, the little gentleman poked his snuff-box first
into the chest of Mr. Pickwick, and then into the waistcoat of Mr.
Wardle, upon which they all three laughed, especially the two last-named
gentlemen, who at once shook hands again, without any obvious or
particular reason.
'You dine with me to-day,' said Wardle to Perker, as he showed them out.
'Can't promise, my dear Sir, can't promise,' replied Perker. 'I'll look
in, in the evening, at all events.'
'I shall expect you at five,' said Wardle. 'Now, Joe!' And Joe having
been at length awakened, the two friends departed in Mr. Wardle's
carriage, which in common humanity had a dickey behind for the fat boy,
who, if there had been a footboard instead, would have rolled off and
killed himself in his very first nap.
Driving to the George and Vulture, they found that Arabella and her maid
had sent for a hackney-coach immediately on the receipt of a short note
from Emily announcing her arrival in town, and had proceeded straight to
the Adelphi. As Wardle had business to transact in the city, they sent
the carriage and the fat boy to his hotel, with the information that he
and Mr. Pickwick would return together to dinner at five o'clock.
Charged with this message, the fat boy returned, slumbering as peaceably
in his dickey, over the stones, as if it had been a down bed on watch
springs. By some extraordinary miracle he awoke of his own accord,
when the coach stopped, and giving himself a good shake to stir up his
faculties, went upstairs to execute his commission.
Now, whether the shake had jumbled the fat boy's faculties together,
instead of arranging them in proper order, or had roused such a quantity
of new ideas within him as to render him oblivious of ordinary forms
and ceremonies, or (which is also possible) had proved unsuccessful
in preventing his falling asleep as he ascended the stairs, it is an
undoubted fact that he walked into the sitting-room without previously
knocking at the door; and so beheld a gentleman with his arms clasping
his young mistress's waist, sitting very lovingly by her side on a sofa,
while Arabella and her pretty handmaid feigned to be absorbed in looking
out of a window at the other end of the room. At the sight of this
phenomenon, the fat boy uttered an interjection, the ladies a scream,
and the gentleman an oath, almost simultaneously.
'Wretched creature, what do you want here?' said the gentleman, who it
is needless to say was Mr. Snodgrass.
To this the fat boy, considerably terrified, briefly responded,
'Missis.'
'What do you want me for,' inquired Emily, turning her head aside, 'you
stupid creature?'
'Master and Mr. Pickwick is a-going to dine here at five,' replied the
fat boy.
'Leave the room!' said Mr. Snodgrass, glaring upon the bewildered youth.
'No, no, no,' added Emily hastily. 'Bella, dear, advise me.'
Upon this, Emily and Mr. Snodgrass, and Arabella and Mary, crowded into
a corner, and conversed earnestly in whispers for some minutes, during
which the fat boy dozed.
'Joe,' said Arabella, at length, looking round with a most bewitching
smile, 'how do you do, Joe?'
'Joe,' said Emily, 'you're a very good boy; I won't forget you, Joe.'
'Joe,' said Mr. Snodgrass, advancing to the astonished youth, and
seizing his hand, 'I didn't know you before. There's five shillings for
you, Joe!"
'I'll owe you five, Joe,' said Arabella, 'for old acquaintance sake,
you know;' and another most captivating smile was bestowed upon the
corpulent intruder.
The fat boy's perception being slow, he looked rather puzzled at first
to account for this sudden prepossession in his favour, and stared about
him in a very alarming manner. At length his broad face began to show
symptoms of a grin of proportionately broad dimensions; and then,
thrusting half-a-crown into each of his pockets, and a hand and wrist
after it, he burst into a horse laugh: being for the first and only time
in his existence.
'He understands us, I see,' said Arabella. 'He had better have something
to eat, immediately,' remarked Emily.
The fat boy almost laughed again when he heard this suggestion. Mary,
after a little more whispering, tripped forth from the group and said--
'I am going to dine with you to-day, sir, if you have no objection.'
'This way,' said the fat boy eagerly. 'There is such a jolly meat-pie!'
With these words, the fat boy led the way downstairs; his pretty
companion captivating all the waiters and angering all the chambermaids
as she followed him to the eating-room.
There was the meat-pie of which the youth had spoken so feelingly, and
there were, moreover, a steak, and a dish of potatoes, and a pot of
porter.
'Sit down,' said the fat boy. 'Oh, my eye, how prime! I am SO hungry.'
Having apostrophised his eye, in a species of rapture, five or six
times, the youth took the head of the little table, and Mary seated
herself at the bottom.
'Will you have some of this?' said the fat boy, plunging into the pie up
to the very ferules of the knife and fork.
'A little, if you please,' replied Mary.
The fat boy assisted Mary to a little, and himself to a great deal, and
was just going to begin eating when he suddenly laid down his knife and
fork, leaned forward in his chair, and letting his hands, with the knife
and fork in them, fall on his knees, said, very slowly--
'I say! How nice you look!'
This was said in an admiring manner, and was, so far, gratifying; but
still there was enough of the cannibal in the young gentleman's eyes to
render the compliment a double one.
'Dear me, Joseph,' said Mary, affecting to blush, 'what do you mean?'
The fat boy, gradually recovering his former position, replied with a
heavy sigh, and, remaining thoughtful for a few moments, drank a long
draught of the porter. Having achieved this feat, he sighed again, and
applied himself assiduously to the pie.
'What a nice young lady Miss Emily is!' said Mary, after a long silence.
The fat boy had by this time finished the pie. He fixed his eyes on
Mary, and replied--'I knows a nicerer.'
'Indeed!' said Mary.
'Yes, indeed!' replied the fat boy, with unwonted vivacity.
'What's her name?' inquired Mary.
'What's yours?'
'Mary.'
'So's hers,' said the fat boy. 'You're her.' The boy grinned to add
point to the compliment, and put his eyes into something between a
squint and a cast, which there is reason to believe he intended for an
ogle.
'You mustn't talk to me in that way,' said Mary; 'you don't mean it.'
'Don't I, though?' replied the fat boy. 'I say?'
'Well?'
'Are you going to come here regular?'
'No,' rejoined Mary, shaking her head, 'I'm going away again to-night.
Why?'
'Oh,' said the fat boy, in a tone of strong feeling; 'how we should have
enjoyed ourselves at meals, if you had been!'
'I might come here sometimes, perhaps, to see you,' said Mary, plaiting
the table-cloth in assumed coyness, 'if you would do me a favour.'
The fat boy looked from the pie-dish to the steak, as if he thought a
favour must be in a manner connected with something to eat; and then
took out one of the half-crowns and glanced at it nervously.
'Don't you understand me?' said Mary, looking slily in his fat face.
Again he looked at the half-crown, and said faintly, 'No.'
'The ladies want you not to say anything to the old gentleman about the
young gentleman having been upstairs; and I want you too.'
'Is that all?' said the fat boy, evidently very much relieved, as he
pocketed the half-crown again. 'Of course I ain't a-going to.'
'You see,' said Mary, 'Mr. Snodgrass is very fond of Miss Emily, and
Miss Emily's very fond of him, and if you were to tell about it, the old
gentleman would carry you all away miles into the country, where you'd
see nobody.'
'No, no, I won't tell,' said the fat boy stoutly.
'That's a dear,' said Mary. 'Now it's time I went upstairs, and got my
lady ready for dinner.'
'Don't go yet,' urged the fat boy.
'I must,' replied Mary. 'Good-bye, for the present.'
The fat boy, with elephantine playfulness, stretched out his arms to
ravish a kiss; but as it required no great agility to elude him, his
fair enslaver had vanished before he closed them again; upon which
the apathetic youth ate a pound or so of steak with a sentimental
countenance, and fell fast asleep.
There was so much to say upstairs, and there were so many plans
to concert for elopement and matrimony in the event of old Wardle
continuing to be cruel, that it wanted only half an hour of dinner when
Mr. Snodgrass took his final adieu. The ladies ran to Emily's bedroom to
dress, and the lover, taking up his hat, walked out of the room. He
had scarcely got outside the door, when he heard Wardle's voice talking
loudly, and looking over the banisters beheld him, followed by some
other gentlemen, coming straight upstairs. Knowing nothing of the house,
Mr. Snodgrass in his confusion stepped hastily back into the room he had
just quitted, and passing thence into an inner apartment (Mr. Wardle's
bedchamber), closed the door softly, just as the persons he had caught
a glimpse of entered the sitting-room. These were Mr. Wardle, Mr.
Pickwick, Mr. Nathaniel Winkle, and Mr. Benjamin Allen, whom he had no
difficulty in recognising by their voices.
'Very lucky I had the presence of mind to avoid them,' thought Mr.
Snodgrass with a smile, and walking on tiptoe to another door near the
bedside; 'this opens into the same passage, and I can walk quietly and
comfortably away.'
There was only one obstacle to his walking quietly and comfortably away,
which was that the door was locked and the key gone.
'Let us have some of your best wine to-day, waiter,' said old Wardle,
rubbing his hands.
'You shall have some of the very best, sir,' replied the waiter.
