Page:Fitzgerald - Pickwickian manners and customs (1897).djvu/136

 and, like Sam Weller after leaving the witness-box, he has said just as little respecting Mr. Pickwick as might be, "which was precisely the object he had in view all along." But it almost seems as though one required to be "brought up" in Pickwick, so to speak, thoroughly to understand him. No true Pickwickian would ever have called Tuckle the Bath Footman, "Blazer," or Jingle, "Jungle." It were better, too, not to adopt a carping tone in dealing with so joyous and irresponsible a work. "Dickens," we are told, "knew nothing of cricket." Yet in his prime the present writer has seen him "marking" all day long, or acting as umpire, with extraordinary knowledge and enthusiasm. In Pickwickian days the game was not what it is now; it was always more or less irregular and disorderly. As proof of "Boz's" ignorance, Mr. Lang, says it is a mystery why Podder "missed the bad balls, blocked the doubtful ones, took the good ones, and sent them flying, etc." Surely nothing could be plainer.