The Pickwick Papers, Charles Dickens [100 books to read in a lifetime TXT] 📗

of that taciturn servitor, expressed an obliging intention of choking him where he stood. This intention, with a promptitude often the effect of desperation, he at once commenced carrying into execution, with much vigour and surgical skill.

Mr. Martin, who was a man of few words and possessed but little power of eloquence or persuasion, submitted to this operation with a very calm and agreeable expression of countenance, for some seconds; finding, however, that it threatened speedily to lead to a result which would place it beyond his power to claim any wages, board or otherwise, in all time to come, he muttered an inarticulate remonstrance and felled Mr. Benjamin Allen to the ground. As that gentleman had his hands entangled in his cravat, he had no alternative but to follow him to the floor. There they both lay struggling, when the shop door opened, and the party was increased by the arrival of two most unexpected visitors, to wit, Mr. Pickwick and Mr. Samuel Weller.

The impression at once produced on Mr. Weller's mind by what he saw, was, that Mr. Martin was hired by the establishment of Sawyer, late Nockemorf, to take strong medicine, or to go into fits and be experimentalised upon, or to swallow poison now and then with the view of testing the efficacy of some new antidotes, or to do something or other to promote the great science of medicine, and gratify the ardent spirit of inquiry burning in the bosoms of its two young professors. So, without presuming to interfere, Sam stood perfectly still, and looked on, as if he were mightily interested in the result of the then pending experiment. Not so, Mr. Pickwick. He at once threw himself on the astonished combatants, with his accustomed energy, and loudly called upon the bystanders to interpose.

This roused Mr. Bob Sawyer, who had been hitherto quite paralysed by the frenzy of his companion. With that gentleman's assistance, Mr. Pickwick raised Ben Allen to his feet. Mr. Martin finding himself alone on the floor, got up, and looked about him.

'Mr. Allen,' said Mr. Pickwick, 'what is the matter, Sir?'

'Never mind, Sir!' replied Mr. Allen, with haughty defiance.

'What is it?' inquired Mr. Pickwick, looking at Bob Sawyer. 'Is he unwell?'

Before Bob could reply, Mr. Ben Allen seized Mr. Pickwick by the hand, and murmured, in sorrowful accents, 'My sister, my dear Sir; my sister.'

'Oh, is that all!' said Mr. Pickwick. 'We shall easily arrange that matter, I hope. Your sister is safe and well, and I am here, my dear Sir, to--'

'Sorry to do anythin' as may cause an interruption to such wery pleasant proceedin's, as the king said wen he dissolved the parliament,' interposed Mr. Weller, who had been peeping through the glass door; 'but there's another experiment here, sir. Here's a wenerable old lady a--lyin' on the carpet waitin' for dissection, or galwinism, or some other rewivin' and scientific inwention.'

'I forgot,' exclaimed Mr. Ben Allen. 'It is my aunt.'

'Dear me!' said Mr. Pickwick. 'Poor lady! Gently Sam, gently.'

'Strange sitivation for one o' the family,' observed Sam Weller, hoisting the aunt into a chair. 'Now depitty sawbones, bring out the wollatilly!'

The latter observation was addressed to the boy in gray, who, having handed over the fly to the care of the street-keeper, had come back to see what all the noise was about. Between the boy in gray, and Mr. Bob Sawyer, and Mr. Benjamin Allen (who having frightened his aunt into a fainting fit, was affectionately solicitous for her recovery) the old lady was at length restored to consciousness; then Mr. Ben Allen, turning with a puzzled countenance to Mr. Pickwick, asked him what he was about to say, when he had been so alarmingly interrupted.

'We are all friends here, I presume?' said Mr. Pickwick, clearing his voice, and looking towards the man of few words with the surly countenance, who drove the fly with the chubby horse.

This reminded Mr. Bob Sawyer that the boy in gray was looking on, with eyes wide open, and greedy ears. The incipient chemist having been lifted up by his coat collar, and dropped outside the door, Bob Sawyer assured Mr. Pickwick that he might speak without reserve.

'Your sister, my dear Sir,' said Mr. Pickwick, turning to Benjamin Allen, 'is in London; well and happy.'

'Her happiness is no object to me, sir,' said Benjamin Allen, with a flourish of the hand.

'Her husband IS an object to ME, Sir,' said Bob Sawyer. 'He shall be an object to me, sir, at twelve paces, and a pretty object I'll make of him, sir--a mean-spirited scoundrel!' This, as it stood, was a very pretty denunciation, and magnanimous withal; but Mr. Bob Sawyer rather weakened its effect, by winding up with some general observations concerning the punching of heads and knocking out of eyes, which were commonplace by comparison.

'Stay, sir,' said Mr. Pickwick; 'before you apply those epithets to the gentleman in question, consider, dispassionately, the extent of his fault, and above all remember that he is a friend of mine.'

'What!' said Mr. Bob Sawyer. 'His name!' cried Ben Allen. 'His name!'

'Mr. Nathaniel Winkle,' said Mr. Pickwick.

Mr. Benjamin Allen deliberately crushed his spectacles beneath the heel of his boot, and having picked up the pieces, and put them into three separate pockets, folded his arms, bit his lips, and looked in a threatening manner at the bland features of Mr. Pickwick.

'Then it's you, is it, Sir, who have encouraged and brought about this match?' inquired Mr. Benjamin Allen at length.

'And it's this gentleman's servant, I suppose,' interrupted the old lady, 'who has been skulking about my house, and endeavouring to entrap my servants to conspire against their mistress.--Martin!'

'Well?' said the surly man, coming forward.

'Is that the young man you saw in the lane, whom you told me about, this morning?'

Mr. Martin, who, as it has already appeared, was a man of few words, looked at Sam Weller, nodded his head, and growled forth, 'That's the man.' Mr. Weller, who was never proud, gave a smile of friendly recognition as his eyes encountered those of the surly groom, and admitted in courteous terms, that he had 'knowed him afore.'

'And this is the faithful creature,' exclaimed Mr. Ben Allen, 'whom I had nearly suffocated!--Mr. Pickwick, how dare you allow your fellow to be employed in the abduction of my sister? I demand that you explain this matter, sir.'

'Explain it, sir!' cried Bob Sawyer fiercely.

'It's a conspiracy,' said Ben Allen.

'A regular plant,' added Mr. Bob Sawyer.

'A disgraceful imposition,' observed the old lady.

'Nothing but a do,' remarked Martin. 'Pray hear me,' urged Mr. Pickwick, as Mr. Ben Allen fell into a chair that patients were bled in, and gave way to his pocket-handkerchief. 'I have rendered no assistance in this matter, beyond being present at one interview between the young people which I could not prevent, and from which I conceived my presence would remove any slight colouring of impropriety that it might otherwise have had; this is the whole share I have had in the transaction, and I had no suspicion that an immediate marriage was even contemplated. Though, mind,' added Mr. Pickwick, hastily checking himself--'mind, I do not say I should have prevented it, if I had known that it was intended.'

'You hear that, all of you; you hear that?' said Mr. Benjamin Allen.

'I hope they do,' mildly observed Mr. Pickwick, looking round, 'and,' added that gentleman, his colour mounting as he spoke, 'I hope they hear this, Sir, also. That from what has been stated to me, sir, I assert that you were by no means justified in attempting to force your sister's inclinations as you did, and that you should rather have endeavoured by your kindness and forbearance to have supplied the place of other nearer relations whom she had never known, from a child. As regards my young friend, I must beg to add, that in every point of worldly advantage he is, at least, on an equal footing with yourself, if not on a much better one, and that unless I hear this question discussed with becoming temper and moderation, I decline hearing any more said upon the subject.'

'I wish to make a wery few remarks in addition to wot has been put for'ard by the honourable gen'l'm'n as has jist give over,' said Mr. Weller, stepping forth, 'wich is this here: a indiwidual in company has called me a feller.'

'That has nothing whatever to do with the matter, Sam,' interposed Mr. Pickwick. 'Pray hold your tongue.'

'I ain't a-goin' to say nothin' on that 'ere pint, sir,' replied Sam, 'but merely this here. P'raps that gen'l'm'n may think as there wos a priory 'tachment; but there worn't nothin' o' the sort, for the young lady said in the wery beginnin' o' the keepin' company, that she couldn't abide him. Nobody's cut him out, and it 'ud ha' been jist the wery same for him if the young lady had never seen Mr. Vinkle. That's what I wished to say, sir, and I hope I've now made that 'ere gen'l'm'n's mind easy.

A short pause followed these consolatory remarks of Mr. Weller. Then Mr. Ben Allen rising from his chair, protested that he would never see Arabella's face again; while Mr. Bob Sawyer, despite Sam's flattering assurance, vowed dreadful vengeance on the happy bridegroom.

But, just when matters were at their height, and threatening to remain so, Mr. Pickwick found a powerful assistant in the old lady, who, evidently much struck by the mode in which he had advocated her niece's cause, ventured to approach Mr. Benjamin Allen with a few comforting reflections, of which the chief were, that after all, perhaps, it was well it was no worse; the least said the soonest mended, and upon her word she did not know that it was so very bad after all; what was over couldn't be begun, and what couldn't be cured must be endured; with various other assurances of the like novel and strengthening description. To all of these, Mr. Benjamin Allen replied that he meant no disrespect to his aunt, or anybody there, but if it were all the same to them, and they would allow him to have his own way, he would rather have the pleasure of hating his sister till death, and after it.

At length, when this determination had been announced half a hundred times, the old lady suddenly bridling up and looking very majestic, wished to know what she had done that no respect was to be paid to her years or station, and that she should be obliged to beg and pray, in that way, of her own nephew, whom she remembered about five-and-twenty years before he was born, and whom she had known, personally, when he hadn't a tooth in his head; to say nothing of her presence on the first occasion of his having his hair cut, and assistance at numerous other times and ceremonies during his babyhood, of sufficient importance to found a claim upon his affection, obedience, and sympathies, for ever.

While the good lady was bestowing this objurgation on Mr. Ben Allen, Bob Sawyer and Mr. Pickwick had retired in close conversation to the inner room, where Mr. Sawyer was observed to apply himself several times to the mouth of a black bottle, under the influence of which, his features gradually assumed a cheerful and even jovial expression. And at last he emerged from the room, bottle in hand, and, remarking that he was very sorry to say he had