Awed by these threats, and quite out of breath, the Independent suffered himself to be disarmed; and Mr. Weller, removing the extinguisher from Pott, set him free with a caution.
“You take yourselves off to bed quietly,” said Sam, “or I’ll put you both in it, and let you fight it out vith the mouth tied, as I vould a dozen sich, if they played these games. And you have the goodness to come this here way, sir, if you please.”
Thus addressing his master, Sam took him by the arm, and led him off, while the rival editors were severally removed to their beds by the landlord, under the inspection of Mr. Bob Sawyer and Mr. Benjamin Allen; breathing, as they went away, many sanguinary threats, and making vague appointments for mortal combat next day. When they came to think it over, however, it occurred to them that they could do it much better in print, so they recommenced deadly hostilities without delay; and all Eatanswill rung with their boldness—on paper.
They had taken themselves off in separate coaches, early next morning, before the other travellers were stirring; and the weather having now cleared up, the chaise companions once more turned their faces to London.
LII
Involving a serious change in the Weller family, and the untimely downfall of Mr. Stiggins.
Considering it a matter of delicacy to abstain from introducing either Bob Sawyer or Ben Allen to the young couple, until they were fully prepared to expect them, and wishing to spare Arabella’s feelings as much as possible, Mr. Pickwick proposed that he and Sam should alight in the neighbourhood of the George and Vulture, and that the two young men should for the present take up their quarters elsewhere. To this they very readily agreed, and the proposition was accordingly acted upon; Mr. Ben Allen and Mr. Bob Sawyer betaking themselves to a sequestered pot-shop on the remotest confines of the Borough, behind the bar door of which their names had in other days very often appeared at the head of long and complex calculations worked in white chalk.
“Dear me, Mr. Weller,” said the pretty housemaid, meeting Sam at the door.
“Dear me I vish it vos, my dear,” replied Sam, dropping behind, to let his master get out of hearing. “Wot a sweet-lookin’ creetur you are, Mary!”
“Lor’, Mr. Weller, what nonsense you do talk!” said Mary. “Oh! don’t, Mr. Weller.”
“Don’t what, my dear?” said Sam.
“Why, that,” replied the pretty housemaid. “Lor, do get along with you.” Thus admonishing him, the pretty housemaid pushed Sam against the wall, declaring that he had tumbled her cap, and put her hair quite out of curl.
“And prevented what I was going to say, besides,” added Mary. “There’s a letter been waiting here for you four days; you hadn’t gone away, half an hour, when it came; and more than that, it’s got ‘immediate,’ on the outside.”
“Vere is it, my love?” inquired Sam.
“I took care of it, for you, or I dare say it would have been lost long before this,” replied Mary. “There, take it; it’s more than you deserve.”
With these words, after many pretty little coquettish doubts and fears, and wishes that she might not have lost it, Mary produced the letter from behind the nicest little muslin tucker possible, and handed it to Sam, who thereupon kissed it with much gallantry and devotion.
“My goodness me!” said Mary, adjusting the tucker, and feigning unconsciousness, “you seem to have grown very fond of it all at once.”
To this Mr. Weller only replied by a wink, the intense meaning of which no description could convey the faintest idea of; and, sitting himself down beside Mary on a window-seat, opened the letter and glanced at the contents.
“Hallo!” exclaimed Sam, “wot’s all this?”
“Nothing the matter, I hope?” said Mary, peeping over his shoulder.
“Bless them eyes o’ yourn!” said Sam, looking up.
“Never mind my eyes; you had much better read your letter,” said the pretty housemaid; and as she said so, she made the eyes twinkle with such slyness and beauty that they were perfectly irresistible.
Sam refreshed himself with a kiss, and read as follows:—
“Markis Gran
“By Dorken
“Wensdy.
“My Dear Sammle,
“I am wery sorry to have the pleasure of being a Bear of ill news your Mother in law cort cold consekens of imprudently settin too long on the damp grass in the rain a hearin of a shepherd who warnt able to leave off till late at night owen to his having vound his-self up vith brandy and vater and not being able to stop his-self till he got a little sober which took a many hours to do the doctor says that if she’d svallo’d varm brandy and vater artervards insted of afore she mightn’t have been no vus her veels wos immedetly greased and everythink done to set her agoin as could be inwented your father had hopes as she vould have vorked round as usual but just as she wos a turnen the corner my boy she took the wrong road and vent down hill vith a welocity you never see and notvithstandin that the drag wos put on drectly by the medikel man it wornt of no use at all for she paid the last pike at twenty minutes afore six o’clock yesterday evenin havin done the jouney wery much under the reglar time vich praps was partly owen to her haven taken in wery little luggage by the vay your father says that if you vill come and see me Sammy he vill take it as a wery great favor for I am wery lonely Samivel N.B. he vill have it spelt that vay vich I say ant right and as there is sich a many things
