The Pickwick Papers
WELLER AND A FAMILY PARTY. MR. PICKWICK MAKES A TOUR OF THE DIMINUTIVE
WORLD HE INHABITS, AND RESOLVES TO MIX WITH IT, IN FUTURE, AS LITTLE AS
POSSIBLE
A few mornings after his incarceration, Mr. Samuel Weller, having
arranged his master’s room with all possible care, and seen him
comfortably seated over his books and papers, withdrew to employ himself
for an hour or two to come, as he best could. It was a fine morning, and
it occurred to Sam that a pint of porter in the open air would lighten
his next quarter of an hour or so, as well as any little amusement in
which he could indulge.
Having arrived at this conclusion, he betook himself to the tap. Having
purchased the beer, and obtained, moreover, the day-but-one-before-
yesterday’s paper, he repaired to the skittle-ground, and seating
himself on a bench, proceeded to enjoy himself in a very sedate and
methodical manner.
First of all, he took a refreshing draught of the beer, and then he
looked up at a window, and bestowed a platonic wink on a young lady who
was peeling potatoes thereat. Then he opened the paper, and folded it so
as to get the police reports outwards; and this being a vexatious and
difficult thing to do, when there is any wind stirring, he took another
draught of the beer when he had accomplished it. Then, he read two lines
of the paper, and stopped short to look at a couple of men who were
finishing a game at rackets, which, being concluded, he cried out ‘wery
good,’ in an approving manner, and looked round upon the spectators, to
ascertain whether their sentiments coincided with his own. This involved
the necessity of looking up at the windows also; and as the young lady
was still there, it was an act of common politeness to wink again, and
to drink to her good health in dumb show, in another draught of the
beer, which Sam did; and having frowned hideously upon a small boy who
had noted this latter proceeding with open eyes, he threw one leg over
the other, and, holding the newspaper in both hands, began to read in
real earnest.
He had hardly composed himself into the needful state of abstraction,
when he thought he heard his own name proclaimed in some distant
passage. Nor was he mistaken, for it quickly passed from mouth to mouth,
and in a few seconds the air teemed with shouts of ‘Weller!’
Here!’ roared Sam, in a stentorian voice. ‘Wot’s the matter? Who wants
him? Has an express come to say that his country house is afire?’
‘Somebody wants you in the hall,’ said a man who was standing by.
‘Just mind that ‘ere paper and the pot, old feller, will you?’ said Sam.
‘I’m a-comin’. Blessed, if they was a-callin’ me to the bar, they
couldn’t make more noise about it!’
Accompanying these words with a gentle rap on the head of the young
gentleman before noticed, who, unconscious of his close vicinity to the
person in request, was screaming ‘Weller!’ with all his might, Sam
hastened across the ground, and ran up the steps into the hall. Here,
the first object that met his eyes was his beloved father sitting on a
bottom stair, with his hat in his hand, shouting out ‘Weller!’ in his
very loudest tone, at half-minute intervals.
‘Wot are you a-roarin’ at?’ said Sam impetuously, when the old gentleman
had discharged himself of another shout; ‘making yourself so precious
hot that you looks like a aggrawated glass-blower. Wot’s the matter?’
‘Aha!’ replied the old gentleman, ‘I began to be afeerd that you’d gone
for a walk round the Regency Park, Sammy.’
‘Come,’ said Sam, ‘none o’ them taunts agin the wictim o’ avarice, and
come off that ‘ere step. Wot are you a-settin’ down there for? I don’t
live there.’
‘I’ve got such a game for you, Sammy,’ said the elder Mr. Weller,
rising.
‘Stop a minit,’ said Sam, ‘you’re all vite behind.’
‘That’s right, Sammy, rub it off,’ said Mr. Weller, as his son dusted
him. ‘It might look personal here, if a man walked about with vitevash
on his clothes, eh, Sammy?’
As Mr. Weller exhibited in this place unequivocal symptoms of an
approaching fit of chuckling, Sam interposed to stop it.
‘Keep quiet, do,’ said Sam, ‘there never vos such a old picter-card
born. Wot are you bustin’ vith, now?’
‘Sammy,’ said Mr. Weller, wiping his forehead, ‘I’m afeerd that vun o’
these days I shall laugh myself into a appleplexy, my boy.’
‘Vell, then, wot do you do it for?’ said Sam. ‘Now, then, wot have you
got to say?’
‘Who do you think’s come here with me, Samivel?’ said Mr. Weller,
drawing back a pace or two, pursing up his mouth, and extending his
eyebrows.
‘Pell?’ said Sam.
Mr. Weller shook his head, and his red cheeks expanded with the laughter
that was endeavouring to find a vent.
‘Mottled-faced man, p’raps?’ asked Sam.
Again Mr. Weller shook his head.
‘Who then?’asked Sam.
‘Your mother-in-law,’ said Mr. Weller; and it was lucky he did say it,
or his cheeks must inevitably have cracked, from their most unnatural
distension.
‘Your mother-in-law, Sammy,’ said Mr. Weller, ‘and the red-nosed man, my
boy; and the red-nosed man. Ho! ho! ho!’
With this, Mr. Weller launched into convulsions of laughter, while Sam
regarded him with a broad grin gradually over-spreading his whole
countenance.
‘They’ve come to have a little serious talk with you, Samivel,’ said Mr.
Weller, wiping his eyes. ‘Don’t let out nothin’ about the unnat’ral
creditor, Sammy.’
‘Wot, don’t they know who it is?’ inquired Sam.
‘Not a bit on it,’ replied his father.
‘Vere are they?’ said Sam, reciprocating all the old gentleman’s grins.
‘In the snuggery,’ rejoined Mr. Weller. ‘Catch the red-nosed man a-goin’
anyvere but vere the liquors is; not he, Samivel, not he. Ve’d a wery
pleasant ride along the road from the Markis this mornin’, Sammy,’ said
Mr. Weller, when he felt himself equal to the task of speaking in an
articulate manner. ‘I drove the old piebald in that ‘ere little chay-
cart as belonged to your mother-in-law’s first wenter, into vich a harm-
cheer wos lifted for the shepherd; and I’m blessed,’ said Mr. Weller,
with a look of deep scorn--‘I’m blessed if they didn’t bring a portable
flight o’ steps out into the road a-front o’ our door for him, to get up
by.’
‘You don’t mean that?’ said Sam.
‘I do mean that, Sammy,’ replied his father, ‘and I vish you could ha’
seen how tight he held on by the sides wen he did get up, as if he wos
afeerd o’ being precipitayted down full six foot, and dashed into a
million hatoms. He tumbled in at last, however, and avay ve vent; and I
rayther think--I say I rayther think, Samivel--that he found his-self a
little jolted ven ve turned the corners.’
‘Wot, I s’pose you happened to drive up agin a post or two?’ said Sam.
‘I’m afeerd,’ replied Mr. Weller, in a rapture of winks--‘I’m afeerd I
took vun or two on ‘em, Sammy; he wos a-flyin’ out o’ the arm-cheer all
the way.’
Here the old gentleman shook his head from side to side, and was seized
with a hoarse internal rumbling, accompanied with a violent swelling of
the countenance, and a sudden increase in the breadth of all his
features; symptoms which alarmed his son not a little.
‘Don’t be frightened, Sammy, don’t be frightened,’ said the old
gentleman, when by dint of much struggling, and various convulsive
stamps upon the ground, he had recovered his voice. ‘It’s only a kind o’
quiet laugh as I’m a-tryin’ to come, Sammy.’
‘Well, if that’s wot it is,’ said Sam, ‘you’d better not try to come it
agin. You’ll find it rayther a dangerous inwention.’
‘Don’t you like it, Sammy?’ inquired the old gentleman.
‘Not at all,’ replied Sam.
‘Well,’ said Mr. Weller, with the tears still running down his cheeks,
‘it ‘ud ha’ been a wery great accommodation to me if I could ha’ done
it, and ‘ud ha’ saved a good many vords atween your mother-in-law and
me, sometimes; but I’m afeerd you’re right, Sammy, it’s too much in the
appleplexy line--a deal too much, Samivel.’
This conversation brought them to the door of the snuggery, into which
Sam--pausing for an instant to look over his shoulder, and cast a sly
leer at his respected progenitor, who was still giggling behind--at once
led the way.
‘Mother-in-law,’ said Sam, politely saluting the lady, ‘wery much
obliged to you for this here wisit.--Shepherd, how air you?’
‘Oh, Samuel!’ said Mrs. Weller. ‘This is dreadful.’
‘Not a bit on it, mum,’ replied Sam.--‘Is it, shepherd?’
Mr. Stiggins raised his hands, and turned up his eyes, until the whites-
-or rather the yellows--were alone visible; but made no reply in words.
‘Is this here gen’l’m’n troubled with any painful complaint?’ said Sam,
looking to his mother-in-law for explanation.
‘The good man is grieved to see you here, Samuel,’ replied Mrs. Weller.
‘Oh, that’s it, is it?’ said Sam. ‘I was afeerd, from his manner, that
he might ha’ forgotten to take pepper vith that ‘ere last cowcumber he
eat. Set down, Sir, ve make no extra charge for settin’ down, as the
king remarked wen he blowed up his ministers.’
‘Young man,’ said Mr. Stiggins ostentatiously, ‘I fear you are not
softened by imprisonment.’
‘Beg your pardon, Sir,’ replied Sam; ‘wot wos you graciously pleased to
hobserve?’
‘I apprehend, young man, that your nature is no softer for this
chastening,’ said Mr. Stiggins, in a loud voice.
‘Sir,’ replied Sam, ‘you’re wery kind to say so. I hope my natur is _NOT
_ a soft vun, Sir. Wery much obliged to you for your good opinion, Sir.’
At this point of the conversation, a sound, indecorously approaching to
a laugh, was heard to proceed from the chair in which the elder Mr.
Weller was seated; upon which Mrs. Weller, on a hasty consideration of
all the circumstances of the case, considered it her bounden duty to
become gradually hysterical.
‘Weller,’ said Mrs. W. (the old gentleman was seated in a corner);
‘Weller! Come forth.’
‘Wery much obleeged to you, my dear,’ replied Mr. Weller; ‘but I’m quite
comfortable vere I am.’
Upon this, Mrs. Weller burst into tears.
‘Wot’s gone wrong, mum?’ said Sam.
‘Oh, Samuel!’ replied Mrs. Weller, ‘your father makes me wretched. Will
nothing do him good?’
‘Do you hear this here?’ said Sam. ‘Lady vants to know vether nothin’
‘ull do you good.’
‘Wery much indebted to Mrs. Weller for her po-lite inquiries, Sammy,’
replied the old gentleman. ‘I think a pipe vould benefit me a good deal.
Could I be accommodated, Sammy?’
Here Mrs. Weller let fall some more tears, and Mr. Stiggins groaned.
‘Hollo! Here’s this unfortunate gen’l’m’n took ill agin,’ said Sam,
looking round. ‘Vere do you feel it now, sir?’
‘In the same place, young man,’ rejoined Mr. Stiggins, ‘in the same
place.’
‘Vere may that be, Sir?’ inquired Sam, with great outward simplicity.
‘In the buzzim, young man,’ replied Mr. Stiggins, placing his umbrella
on his waistcoat.
At this affecting reply, Mrs. Weller, being wholly unable to suppress
her feelings, sobbed aloud, and stated her conviction that the red-nosed
man was a saint; whereupon Mr. Weller, senior, ventured to suggest, in
an undertone, that he must be the representative of the united parishes
of St. Simon Without and St. Walker Within.
‘I’m afeered, mum,’ said Sam, ‘that this here gen’l’m’n, with the twist
in his countenance, feels rather thirsty, with the melancholy spectacle
afore him. Is it the case, mum?’
The worthy lady looked at Mr. Stiggins for a reply; that gentleman, with
many rollings of the eye, clenched his throat with his right hand, and
mimicked the act of swallowing, to intimate that he was athirst.
‘I am afraid, Samuel, that his feelings have made him so indeed,’ said
Mrs. Weller mournfully.
‘Wot’s your usual tap, sir?’ replied Sam.
‘Oh, my dear young friend,’ replied Mr. Stiggins, ‘all taps is
vanities!’