‘Well, gentlemen,’ said the stout man, ‘very glad to see you. Know you very well, gentlemen, though you mayn’t remember me. I spent some ev’nin’s at your club last winter — picked up my friend Mr. Tupman here this morning, and very glad I was to see him. Well, Sir, and how are you? You do look uncommon well, to be sure.’
Mr. Pickwick acknowledged the compliment, and cordially shook hands with the stout gentleman in the top–boots.
‘Well, and how are you, sir?’ said the stout gentleman, addressing Mr. Snodgrass with paternal anxiety. ‘Charming, eh? Well, that’s right — that’s right. And how are you, sir (to Mr. Winkle)? Well, I am glad to hear you say you are well; very glad I am, to be sure. My daughters, gentlemen — my gals these are; and that’s my sister, Miss Rachael Wardle. She’s a Miss, she is; and yet she ain’t a Miss — eh, Sir, eh?’ And the stout gentleman playfully inserted his elbow between the ribs of Mr. Pickwick, and laughed very heartily.
‘Lor, brother!’ said Miss Wardle, with a deprecating smile.
‘True, true,’ said the stout gentleman; ‘no one can deny it. Gentlemen, I beg your pardon; this is my friend Mr. Trundle. And now you all know each other, let’s be comfortable and happy, and see what’s going forward; that’s what I say.’ So the stout gentleman put on his spectacles, and Mr. Pickwick pulled out his glass, and everybody stood up in the carriage, and looked over somebody else’s shoulder at the evolutions of the military.
Astounding evolutions they were, one rank firing over the heads of another rank, and then running away; and then the other rank firing over the heads of another rank, and running away in their turn; and then forming squares, with officers in the centre; and then descending the trench on one side with scaling–ladders, and ascending it on the other again by the same means; and knocking down barricades of baskets, and behaving in the most gallant manner possible. Then there was such a ramming down of the contents of enormous guns on the battery, with instruments like magnified mops; such a preparation before they were let off, and such an awful noise when they did go, that the air resounded with the screams of ladies. The young Misses Wardle were so frightened, that Mr. Trundle was actually obliged to hold one of them up in the carriage, while Mr. Snodgrass supported the other; and Mr. Wardle’s sister suffered under such a dreadful state of nervous alarm, that Mr. Tupman found it indispensably necessary to put his arm round her waist, to keep her up at all. Everybody was excited, except the fat boy, and he slept as soundly as if the roaring of cannon were his ordinary lullaby.
‘Joe, Joe!’ said the stout gentleman, when the citadel was taken, and the besiegers and besieged sat down to dinner. ‘Damn that boy, he’s gone to sleep again. Be good enough to pinch him, sir — in the leg, if you please; nothing else wakes him — thank you. Undo the hamper, Joe.’
The fat boy, who had been effectually roused by the compression of a portion of his leg between the finger and thumb of Mr. Winkle, rolled off the box once again, and proceeded to unpack the hamper with more expedition than could have been expected from his previous inactivity.
‘Now we must sit close,’ said the stout gentleman. After a great many jokes about squeezing the ladies’ sleeves, and a vast quantity of blushing at sundry jocose proposals, that the ladies should sit in the gentlemen’s laps, the whole party were stowed down in the barouche; and the stout gentleman proceeded to hand the things from the fat boy (who had mounted up behind for the purpose) into the carriage.
‘Now, Joe, knives and forks.’ The knives and forks were handed in, and the ladies and gentlemen inside, and Mr. Winkle on the box, were each furnished with those useful instruments.
‘Plates, Joe, plates.’ A similar process employed in the distribution of the crockery.
‘Now, Joe, the fowls. Damn that boy; he’s gone to sleep again. Joe! Joe!’ (Sundry taps on the head with a stick, and the fat boy, with some difficulty, roused from his lethargy.) ‘Come, hand in the eatables.’
There was something in the sound of the last word which roused the unctuous boy. He jumped up, and the leaden eyes which twinkled behind his mountainous cheeks leered horribly upon the food as he unpacked it from the basket.
‘Now make haste,’ said Mr. Wardle; for the fat boy was hanging fondly over a capon, which he seemed wholly unable to part with. The boy sighed deeply, and, bestowing an ardent gaze upon its plumpness, unwillingly consigned it to his master.
‘That’s right — look sharp. Now the tongue — now the pigeon pie. Take care of that veal and ham — mind the lobsters — take the salad out of the cloth — give me the dressing.’ Such were the hurried orders which issued from the lips of Mr. Wardle, as he handed in the different articles described, and placed dishes in everybody’s hands, and on everybody’s knees, in endless number. ‘Now ain’t this capital?’ inquired that jolly personage, when the work of destruction had commenced.
‘Capital!’ said Mr. Winkle, who was carving a fowl on the box.
‘Glass of wine?’
‘With the greatest pleasure.’
‘You’d better have a bottle to yourself up there, hadn’t you?’
‘You’re very good.’
‘Joe!’
‘Yes, Sir.’ (He wasn’t asleep this time, having just succeeded in abstracting a veal patty.)
‘Bottle of wine to the gentleman on the box. Glad to see you, Sir.’
‘Thank’ee.’ Mr. Winkle emptied his glass, and placed the bottle on the coach–box, by his side.
‘Will you permit me to have the pleasure, Sir?’ said Mr. Trundle to Mr. Winkle.
‘With great pleasure,’ replied Mr. Winkle to Mr. Trundle, and then the two gentlemen took wine, after which they took a glass of wine round, ladies and all.
‘How dear Emily is flirting with the strange gentleman,’ whispered the spinster aunt, with true spinster–aunt–like envy, to her brother, Mr. Wardle.
‘Oh! I don’t know,’ said the jolly old gentleman; ‘all very natural, I dare say — nothing unusual. Mr. Pickwick, some wine, Sir?’ Mr. Pickwick, who had been deeply investigating the interior of the pigeon–pie, readily assented.
‘Emily, my dear,’ said the spinster aunt, with a patronising air, ‘don’t talk so loud, love.’
‘Lor, aunt!’
‘Aunt and the little old gentleman want to have it all to themselves, I think,’ whispered Miss Isabella Wardle to her sister Emily. The young ladies laughed very heartily, and the old one tried to look amiable, but couldn’t manage it.
‘Young girls have such spirits,’ said Miss Wardle to Mr. Tupman, with an air of gentle commiseration, as if animal spirits were contraband, and their possession without a permit a high crime and misdemeanour.
‘Oh, they have,’ replied Mr. Tupman, not exactly making the sort of reply that was expected from him. ‘It’s quite delightful.’
‘Hem!’ said Miss Wardle, rather dubiously.
‘Will you permit me?’ said Mr. Tupman, in his blandest manner, touching the enchanting Rachael’s wrist with one hand, and gently elevating the bottle with the other. ‘Will you permit me?’
‘Oh, sir!’ Mr. Tupman looked most impressive; and Rachael expressed her fear that more guns were going off, in which case, of course, she should have required support again.
‘Do you think my dear nieces pretty?’ whispered their affectionate aunt to Mr. Tupman.
‘I should, if their aunt wasn’t here,’ replied the ready Pickwickian, with a passionate glance.
‘Oh, you naughty man — but really, if their complexions were a little better, don’t you think they would be nice–looking girls — by candlelight?’
‘Yes; I think they would,’ said Mr. Tupman, with an air of indifference.