FURTHER PARTICULARS OF MASTER HUMPHREY'S VISITER.
BEING very full of Mr. Pickwick's application, and highly pleased
with the compliment he had paid me, it will be readily supposed that
long before our next night of meeting, I communicated it to my three
friends, who unanimously voted his admission into our body. We all
looked forward with some impatience to the occasion which would enrol
him among us, but I am greatly mistaken if Jack Redburn and myself were
not by many degrees the most impatient of the party.
At length the night came, and a few minutes after ten Mr. Pickwick's
knock was heard at the street-door. He was shown into a lower rom, and
I directly took my crooked stick and went to accompany him up stairs, in
order that he might be presented with all honour and formality.
“Mr. Pickwick,” said I on entering the room, “I am
rejoiced to see you — rejoiced to believe that this is but the opening
of a long series of visits to this house, and but the beginning of a
close and lasting friendship.”
That gentleman made a suitable reply with a cordiality and frankness
peculiarly his own, and glanced with a smile towards two persons behind
the door, whom I had not at first observed, and whom I immediately
recognised as Mr. Samuel Weller and his father.
It was a warm evening, but the elder Mr. Weller was attired,
notwithstanding, in a most capacious great coat, and had his chin
enveloped in a large speckled shawl, such as is usually worn by
stage-coachmen on active service. He looked very rosy and very stout,
especially about the legs, which appeared to have been compressed into
his top-boots with some difficulty. His broad-brimmed hat he held under
his left arm, and with the fore-finger of his right hand he touched his
forehead a great many times, in acknowledgment of my presence.
“I am very glad to see you in such good health, Mr.
Weller,” said I.
“Why, thankee sir,” returned Mr. Weller, “the axle
an't broke yet. We keeps up a steady pace — not too sewere but with a
moderate degree o' friction — and the consekens is that ve're still a
runnin' and comes in to the time, reg'lar. — My son Samivel sir, as you
may have read on in history,” added Mr. Weller, introducing his
first-born.
I received Sam very graciously, but before he could say a word, his
father struck in again.
“Samivel Veller, sir,” said the old gentleman, “has
con-ferred upon me the ancient title o' grandfather, vich had long laid
dormouse, and wos s'posed to be nearly hex-tinct, in our family. Sammy,
relate a anecdote o' vun o' them boys — that 'ere little anecdote about
young Tony, sayin' as he vould smoke a pipe unbeknown to his
mother.”
“Be quiet, can't you?” said Sam, “I never see such
a old magpie — never!”
“That 'ere Tony is the blessedest boy,” — said Mr.
Weller, heedless of this rebuff, “the blessedest boy as ever
I see in my days! of all the charmin'est infants as
ever I heerd tell on, includin' them as wos kivered over by the robin
red-breasts arter they'd committed sooicide with blackberries, there
never wos any llike that 'ere little Tony. He's alvays a playin' with a
quart pot that boy is! To see him a settin' down on the door step
pretending to drink out of it, and fetching a long breath artervards,
and smoking a bit of fire-vood and sayin' ‘Now I'm
grandfather’ — to see him a doin' that at two year old is better
than any play as wos ever wrote. ‘Now I'm grandfather!’ He
wouldn't take a pint pot if you wos to make him a present on it, but he
gets his quart and then he says, ‘Now I'm grandfather!’
”
Mr. Weller was so overpowered by this picture that he straightway
fell into a most alarming fit of coughing, which must certainly have
been attended with some fatal
result, but for the dexterity, but for the dexterity and promptitude of
Sam, who taking a firm grasp of the shawl just under his father's chin,
shook him to and fro with great violence, at the same time administering
some smart blows between his shoulders. By this curious mode of
treatment Mr. Weller was finally recovered, but with a very crimson face
and in a state of great exhaustion.
“He'll do now, Sam,” said Mr. Pickwick, who had been in
some alarm himself.
“He'll do sir!” cried Sam, looking reproachfully at his
parent, “Yes, he will do one o' these days — he'll do
for his-self and then he'll wish he hadn't. did anybody ever see sich a
inconsiderate old file, — laughing into conwulsions afore company, and
stamping on the floor as if he'd brought his own carpet vith him and wos
under a wager to punch the pattern out in a given time? He'll begin
again in a minute. there — he's a goin' off — I said he
would!”
In fact, Mr. Weller, whose mind was still running upon his precocious
grandson, was seen to shake his head from side to side, while a laugh,
working like an earthquake, below the surface, produced various
extraordinary appearances in his face, chest, and shoulders, the more
alarming because unaccompanied by any noise whatever. These emotions,
however, gradually subsided, and after three or four short relapses, he
wiped his eyes with the cuff of his coat, and looked about him with
tolerable composure.
“Afore the governor vith-draws,” said Mr. Weller,
“there is a pint, respecting vich Sammy has a qvestion to ask.
Vile that qvestion is a perwadin this here conwersation, p'raps the
genl'mem vill permit me to re-tire.”
“Wot are you goin' away for?” demanded Sam, seizing his
father by the coat tail.
“I never see such a undootiful boy as you, Samivel,”
returned Mr. Weller. — “Didn't you make a solemn promise, —
amountin' almost to a speeches o' wow, — that you'd put that ere
qvestion on my account?”
“Well, I'm agreeable to do it,” said Sam; “but not
if you go cuttin' away like that, as the bull turned round and mildly
observed to the drover ven they wos a goadin' him into the butcher's
door. The fact is, sir, ” said Sam, adresing me, “that he
wantss to know somethin' respectin that ere lady as is housekeeper
here.”
“Ay! What is that?”
“vy, sir,” said Sam, grinning still more, “he
vishes to know vether she —”
“In short,” interposed old Mr. Weller, decisively, a
perspiration breaking out upon his forehead, “vether that 'ere old
creetur is or is not a widder.”
Mr. Pickwick laughed heartily, and so did I, as I replied decisively
that “my housekeeper was a spinster.”
“there!” cried Sam, “now you're satisfied. You
hear she's a spinster.”
“A wot?” said his father, with deep scorn.
“A spinster,” replied Sam.
Mr. Weller looked very hard at his son for a minute or two, and then
said,
“Never mind vether she makes jokes or not, that's no matter.
Wot I say is, is that ere female a widder, or is she not?”
“Wot do you mean by her making jokes?” demanded Sam,
quite aghast at the obscurity of his parent's speech.
“Never you mind, Samivel,” returned Mr. Weller, gravely;
“puns may be wery good things or they may be wery bad 'uns, and a
female may be none the better, or she may be none the vurse for making
of 'em; that's got nothing to do vith widders.”
“Vy, now,” said Sam, looking round, “would anybody
believe as a man at his time o' life could be a running his head agin
spinsters and punsters being the same thing.”
“There an't a straw's difference between 'em,” said Mr.
Weller. “Your father didn't drive a coach for so many years, not
to be ekal to his own langvidge as far as that goes,
Sammy.”
Avoiding the question of etymology, upon which the old gentleman's
mind was quite made up, he was several times assured that the
housekeeper had never been married. He expressed great satisfaction on
hearing this, and apologised for the question, remarking that he had
been greatly terrified by a widow not long before, and that his natural
timidity was increased in consequence.
“It was on the rail,” said Mr. Weller, with strong
emphasis; “I wos a goin' down to Birmingham by the rail, and I wos
locked up in a close carriage vith a living widder. Alone we wos; the
widder and me wos alone; and I believe it wos only because we
wos alone and there wos no clergyman in the conwayance, that
that 'ere widder didn't marry me afore ve reached the halfway station.
Ven I think how she began a screaming as we wos a goin' under them
tunnels in the dark — how she kept on a faintin' and kitchin' hold o'
me — and how I tried to bust open the door as wos tight-locked, and
perwented all escape — Ah! It wos a awful thing — most
awful!”
Mr. Weller was so very much overcome by this retrospect that he was
unable, until he had wiped his brow several times, to return any reply
to the question, whether he approved of railway communication,
notwithstanding that it would appear from the answer which he ultimately
gave, that he entertained strong opinions on the subject.
“I consider,” said Mr. Weller, “that the rail is
unconstitootional and an inwaser o' priwileges, and I should wery much
like to know what that 'ere old Carter as once stood up for our
liberties, and wun 'em too — I should like to know wot he vould say if
he wos alive now, to Englishmen being locked up with widders, or with
anybody again their wills. Wot a old Carter would have said, a old
Coachman may say; and I assert that in hat pint o' view alone, the rail
is an inwaser. As to the comfort, vere's the comfort o' sittin' in a
harm cheer, lookin' at brick walls or heaps o' mud, never comin' to a
public house, never seein' a glass o' ale, never goin' through a pike,
never meetin' a change o' no kind (horses or othervise), but alvays
comin' to a place, ven you come to one at all, the wery picter of the
last, vith the same p'leesemen standin', the same unfort'nate people
standing behind the bars, a waitin' to be let in; and everythin' the
same, except the name, vich is wrote up in the same sized letters as the
last name and vith the same colours. As to the honour and dignity o'
travellin' vere can that be vithout a coachman; and wot's the rail to
sich coachmen and guards as is sometimes forced to go by it, but a
outrage and a insult! As to the pace, wot sort 'o pace do you think I,
Tony Veller, could have kept a coach goin' at, for five hundred thousand
pound a mile, paid in adwance, afore the coach was on the road? And as
to the ingein — a nasty, wheezin', creaking, gasping puffin', bustin'
monster, alvays out o' breath, vith a shiny green and gold back, like a
unpleasant beetle in that 'ere gas magnifier; — as to the ingein as is
alvays a pourin' out red-hot coals at night, and black smoke in the day,
the sensiblest thing it does, in my opinion, is, ven there's somethin'
in the vay, and it sets up that 'ere frightful scream, vich seems to
say, ‘Now, here's two hundred and forty passengers in the wery
greatest extremity o' danger, and here's their two hundred and forty
screams in vun!’ ”
By this time I began to fear that my friends would be rendered
impatient by my protracted absence. I therefore begged Mr. Pickwick to
accompany me up stairs, and left the two Mr. Wellers in the care of the
housekeeper; laying strict injunctions upon her to treat them with all
possible hospitality.
