The Pickwick Papers
‘Wery good, my dear,’ replied Sam. ‘Let me have nine-penn’oth o’ brandy-
and-water luke, and the inkstand, will you, miss?’
The brandy-and-water luke, and the inkstand, having been carried into
the little parlour, and the young lady having carefully flattened down
the coals to prevent their blazing, and carried away the poker to
preclude the possibility of the fire being stirred, without the full
privity and concurrence of the Blue Boar being first had and obtained,
Sam Weller sat himself down in a box near the stove, and pulled out the
sheet of gilt-edged letter-paper, and the hard-nibbed pen. Then looking
carefully at the pen to see that there were no hairs in it, and dusting
down the table, so that there might be no crumbs of bread under the
paper, Sam tucked up the cuffs of his coat, squared his elbows, and
composed himself to write.
To ladies and gentlemen who are not in the habit of devoting themselves
practically to the science of penmanship, writing a letter is no very
easy task; it being always considered necessary in such cases for the
writer to recline his head on his left arm, so as to place his eyes as
nearly as possible on a level with the paper, and, while glancing
sideways at the letters he is constructing, to form with his tongue
imaginary characters to correspond. These motions, although
unquestionably of the greatest assistance to original composition,
retard in some degree the progress of the writer; and Sam had
unconsciously been a full hour and a half writing words in small text,
smearing out wrong letters with his little finger, and putting in new
ones which required going over very often to render them visible through
the old blots, when he was roused by the opening of the door and the
entrance of his parent.
‘Vell, Sammy,’ said the father.
‘Vell, my Prooshan Blue,’ responded the son, laying down his pen.
‘What’s the last bulletin about mother-in-law?’
‘Mrs. Veller passed a very good night, but is uncommon perwerse, and
unpleasant this mornin’. Signed upon oath, Tony Veller, Esquire. That’s
the last vun as was issued, Sammy,’ replied Mr. Weller, untying his
shawl.
‘No better yet?’ inquired Sam.
‘All the symptoms aggerawated,’ replied Mr. Weller, shaking his head.
‘But wot’s that, you’re a-doin’ of? Pursuit of knowledge under
difficulties, Sammy?’
‘I’ve done now,’ said Sam, with slight embarrassment; ‘I’ve been a-
writin’.’
‘So I see,’ replied Mr. Weller. ‘Not to any young ‘ooman, I hope,
Sammy?’
‘Why, it’s no use a-sayin’ it ain’t,’ replied Sam; ‘it’s a walentine.’
‘A what!’ exclaimed Mr. Weller, apparently horror-stricken by the word.
‘A walentine,’ replied Sam.
‘Samivel, Samivel,’ said Mr. Weller, in reproachful accents, ‘I didn’t
think you’d ha’ done it. Arter the warnin’ you’ve had o’ your father’s
wicious propensities; arter all I’ve said to you upon this here wery
subject; arter actiwally seein’ and bein’ in the company o’ your own
mother-in-law, vich I should ha’ thought wos a moral lesson as no man
could never ha’ forgotten to his dyin’ day! I didn’t think you’d ha’
done it, Sammy, I didn’t think you’d ha’ done it!’ These reflections
were too much for the good old man. He raised Sam’s tumbler to his lips
and drank off its contents.
‘Wot’s the matter now?’ said Sam.
‘Nev’r mind, Sammy,’ replied Mr. Weller, ‘it’ll be a wery agonisin’
trial to me at my time of life, but I’m pretty tough, that’s vun
consolation, as the wery old turkey remarked wen the farmer said he wos
afeerd he should be obliged to kill him for the London market.’
‘Wot’ll be a trial?’ inquired Sam.
‘To see you married, Sammy--to see you a dilluded wictim, and thinkin’
in your innocence that it’s all wery capital,’ replied Mr. Weller. ‘It’s
a dreadful trial to a father’s feelin’s, that ‘ere, Sammy--’
‘Nonsense,’ said Sam. ‘I ain’t a-goin’ to get married, don’t you fret
yourself about that; I know you’re a judge of these things. Order in
your pipe and I’ll read you the letter. There!’
We cannot distinctly say whether it was the prospect of the pipe, or the
consolatory reflection that a fatal disposition to get married ran in
the family, and couldn’t be helped, which calmed Mr. Weller’s feelings,
and caused his grief to subside. We should be rather disposed to say
that the result was attained by combining the two sources of
consolation, for he repeated the second in a low tone, very frequently;
ringing the bell meanwhile, to order in the first. He then divested
himself of his upper coat; and lighting the pipe and placing himself in
front of the fire with his back towards it, so that he could feel its
full heat, and recline against the mantel-piece at the same time, turned
towards Sam, and, with a countenance greatly mollified by the softening
influence of tobacco, requested him to ‘fire away.’
Sam dipped his pen into the ink to be ready for any corrections, and
began with a very theatrical air--
‘“Lovely--“’
‘Stop,’ said Mr. Weller, ringing the bell. ‘A double glass o’ the
inwariable, my dear.’
‘Very well, Sir,’ replied the girl; who with great quickness appeared,
vanished, returned, and disappeared.
‘They seem to know your ways here,’ observed Sam.
‘Yes,’ replied his father, ‘I’ve been here before, in my time. Go on,
Sammy.’
‘“Lovely creetur,”’ repeated Sam.
‘’Tain’t in poetry, is it?’ interposed his father.
‘No, no,’ replied Sam.
‘Wery glad to hear it,’ said Mr. Weller. ‘Poetry’s unnat’ral; no man
ever talked poetry ‘cept a beadle on boxin’-day, or Warren’s blackin’,
or Rowland’s oil, or some of them low fellows; never you let yourself
down to talk poetry, my boy. Begin agin, Sammy.’
Mr. Weller resumed his pipe with critical solemnity, and Sam once more
commenced, and read as follows:
‘“Lovely creetur I feel myself a damned--“’
That ain’t proper,’ said Mr. Weller, taking his pipe from his mouth.
‘No; it ain’t “damned,”’ observed Sam, holding the letter up to the
light, ‘it’s “shamed,” there’s a blot there--“I feel myself ashamed.”’
‘Wery good,’ said Mr. Weller. ‘Go on.’
‘Feel myself ashamed, and completely cir--’ I forget what this here word
is,’ said Sam, scratching his head with the pen, in vain attempts to
remember.
‘Why don’t you look at it, then?’ inquired Mr. Weller.
‘So I am a-lookin’ at it,’ replied Sam, ‘but there’s another blot.
Here’s a “c,” and a “i,” and a “d.”’
‘Circumwented, p’raps,’ suggested Mr. Weller.
‘No, it ain’t that,’ said Sam, ‘“circumscribed”; that’s it.’
‘That ain’t as good a word as “circumwented,” Sammy,’ said Mr. Weller
gravely.
‘Think not?’ said Sam.
‘Nothin’ like it,’ replied his father.
‘But don’t you think it means more?’ inquired Sam.
‘Vell p’raps it’s a more tenderer word,’ said Mr. Weller, after a few
moments’ reflection. ‘Go on, Sammy.’
‘“Feel myself ashamed and completely circumscribed in a-dressin’ of you,
for you are a nice gal and nothin’ but it.”’
‘That’s a wery pretty sentiment,’ said the elder Mr. Weller, removing
his pipe to make way for the remark.
‘Yes, I think it is rayther good,’ observed Sam, highly flattered.
‘Wot I like in that ‘ere style of writin’,’ said the elder Mr. Weller,
‘is, that there ain’t no callin’ names in it--no Wenuses, nor nothin’ o’
that kind. Wot’s the good o’ callin’ a young ‘ooman a Wenus or a angel,
Sammy?’
‘Ah! what, indeed?’ replied Sam.
‘You might jist as well call her a griffin, or a unicorn, or a king’s
arms at once, which is wery well known to be a collection o’ fabulous
animals,’ added Mr. Weller.
‘Just as well,’ replied Sam.
‘Drive on, Sammy,’ said Mr. Weller.
Sam complied with the request, and proceeded as follows; his father
continuing to smoke, with a mixed expression of wisdom and complacency,
which was particularly edifying.
‘“Afore I see you, I thought all women was alike.”’
‘So they are,’ observed the elder Mr. Weller parenthetically.
‘“But now,”’ continued Sam, ‘“now I find what a reg’lar soft-headed,
inkred’lous turnip I must ha’ been; for there ain’t nobody like you,
though I like you better than nothin’ at all.” I thought it best to make
that rayther strong,’ said Sam, looking up.
Mr. Weller nodded approvingly, and Sam resumed.
‘“So I take the privilidge of the day, Mary, my dear--as the gen’l’m’n
in difficulties did, ven he valked out of a Sunday--to tell you that the
first and only time I see you, your likeness was took on my hart in much
quicker time and brighter colours than ever a likeness was took by the
profeel macheen (wich p’raps you may have heerd on Mary my dear) altho
it _does _finish a portrait and put the frame and glass on complete,
with a hook at the end to hang it up by, and all in two minutes and a
quarter.”’
‘I am afeerd that werges on the poetical, Sammy,’ said Mr. Weller
dubiously.
‘No, it don’t,’ replied Sam, reading on very quickly, to avoid
contesting the point--
‘“Except of me Mary my dear as your walentine and think over what I’ve
said.--My dear Mary I will now conclude.” That’s all,’ said Sam.
‘That’s rather a Sudden pull-up, ain’t it, Sammy?’ inquired Mr. Weller.
‘Not a bit on it,’ said Sam; ‘she’ll vish there wos more, and that’s the
great art o’ letter-writin’.’
‘Well,’ said Mr. Weller, ‘there’s somethin’ in that; and I wish your
mother-in-law ‘ud only conduct her conwersation on the same gen-teel
principle. Ain’t you a-goin’ to sign it?’
‘That’s the difficulty,’ said Sam; ‘I don’t know what to sign it.’
‘Sign it--“Veller”,’ said the oldest surviving proprietor of that name.
‘Won’t do,’ said Sam. ‘Never sign a walentine with your own name.’
‘Sign it “Pickwick,” then,’ said Mr. Weller; ‘it’s a wery good name, and
a easy one to spell.’
The wery thing,’ said Sam. ‘I _could _end with a werse; what do you
think?’
‘I don’t like it, Sam,’ rejoined Mr. Weller. ‘I never know’d a
respectable coachman as wrote poetry, ‘cept one, as made an affectin’
copy o’ werses the night afore he was hung for a highway robbery; and he
wos only a Cambervell man, so even that’s no rule.’
But Sam was not to be dissuaded from the poetical idea that had occurred
to him, so he signed the letter--
‘Your love-sick Pickwick.’
And having folded it, in a very intricate manner, squeezed a downhill
direction in one corner: ‘To Mary, Housemaid, at Mr. Nupkins’s, Mayor’s,
Ipswich, Suffolk’; and put it into his pocket, wafered, and ready for
the general post. This important business having been transacted, Mr.
Weller the elder proceeded to open that, on which he had summoned his
son.
‘The first matter relates to your governor, Sammy,’ said Mr. Weller.
‘He’s a-goin’ to be tried to-morrow, ain’t he?’
‘The trial’s a-comin’ on,’ replied Sam.
‘Vell,’ said Mr. Weller, ‘Now I s’pose he’ll want to call some witnesses
to speak to his character, or p’rhaps to prove a alleybi. I’ve been a-
turnin’ the bis’ness over in my mind, and he may make his-self easy,
Sammy. I’ve got some friends as’ll do either for him, but my adwice ‘ud
be this here--never mind the character, and stick to the alleybi.
Nothing like a alleybi, Sammy, nothing.’ Mr. Weller looked very profound
as he delivered this legal opinion; and burying his nose in his tumbler,
winked over the top thereof, at his astonished son.
‘Why, what do you mean?’ said Sam; ‘you don’t think he’s a-goin’ to be
tried at the Old Bailey, do you?’
‘That ain’t no part of the present consideration, Sammy,’ replied Mr.
Weller. ‘Verever he’s a-goin’ to be tried, my boy, a alleybi’s the thing
to get him off. Ve got Tom Vildspark off that ‘ere manslaughter, with a
alleybi, ven all the big vigs to a man said as nothing couldn’t save
him. And my ‘pinion is, Sammy, that if your governor don’t prove a
alleybi, he’ll be what the Italians call reg’larly flummoxed, and that’s
all about it.’