Page:The Posthumous Papers of the Pickwick Club.djvu/124

78 78 POSTHUMOUS PAPERS OF

" Missus," shouted the fat boy.

"Well Joe/' said the trembling- old lady. " I'm sure I have been a good mistress to you Joe. You have invariably been treated very kindly. You have never had too much to do ; and you have alvi^ays had enough to eat."

This last was an appeal to the fat boy's most sensitive feelings. He seemed touched as he replied, emphatically, —


 * ' I knows I has."

courage.
 * ' Then w^hat can you want to do now?" said the old lady, gaining

" I wants to make your flesh creep," replied the boy.

This sounded hke a very blood-thirsty mode of showing one's grati- tude ; and as the old lady did not precisely understand the process by which such a result was to be attained, all her former horrors returned.

" What do you think I see in this very arbour last night?" inquired the boy.

" Bless us I What ? " exclaimed the old lady, alarmed at the solemn manner of the corpulent youth.

" The strange gentleman — him as had his arm hurt — a kissin' and

h' » » uggm

" Who, Joe — who ? None of the servants, I hope."


 * ' Worser than that," roared the fat boy, in the old lady's ear.

" Not one of my grand-da'aters ? "

" Worser than that."

"Worse than that Joel" said the old lady, who had thought this the extreme limit of human atrocity. " Who was it, Joe ? I insist upon knowing."

The fat boy looked cautiously round, and having concluded his survey, shouted in the old lady's ear, —

" Miss Rachael."

" What ! " said the old lady, in a shrill tone. " Speak louder."

" Miss Rachael," roared the fat boy.

"Myda'ater!"

The train of nods which the fat boy gave by way of assent, communi- cated a hlanc-mange like motion to his fat cheeks.

" And she suffered him !" exclaimed the old lady.

A grin stole over the fat boy's features as he said, —

" I see her a kissin' of him agin."

If Mr. Jingle, from his place of concealment, could have beheld the expression which the old lady's face assumed at this communication, the probability is that a sudden burst of laughter would have betrayed his close vicinity to the summer-house. He listened attentively. Fragments of angry sentences such as, " Without my permission ! " — "At her time of life"— " Miserable old 'ooraan like me"— "Might liave waited till I was dead," and so forth, reached his ears; and then he heard the heels of the fat boy's boots crunching the gravel, as he retired and left the old lady alone.

It was a remarkable coincidence perhaps, but it was nevertheless a fact, that Mr. Jingle within five minutes after his arrival at Manor Farm on the preceding night, had inwardly resolved to lay siege to