Page:The Posthumous Papers of the Pickwick Club.djvu/307

241 THE PICKWICK Cl.UB. '24 1

" Oh, I am so glad," replied Mr. Trotter. " is he here?"

•' Is your'n ?" asked Sam, by way of reply.

" Oh, yes, he is here, and I grieve to say, Mr. Weller, he is going on, worse than ever."

"Ah, ah?" said Sara.

" Oh, shocking — terrible."

" At a boarding-school ? " said Sam.

" No, not at a boarding-school," replied Job Trotter, with the same sly look which Sam had noticed before — " Not at a boarding-school."

"At the house with the green gate?" inquired Sam, eyeing hi« companion closely.

« No, no — oh, not there," replied Job, with a quickness very unusual to him, " not there.*'

" What was you a doin' there ? " asked Sam, with a sharp glance — " Got inside the gate by accident, perhaps ? "

" Why, Mr. Weller," replied Job, " I don't mind telling you my little secrets, because you know we took such a fancy for each other when we first met. You recollect how pleasant we were that morning ? "

" Oh yes," said Sam, impatiently — " I remember. W^ell."

•* Well," replied Job, speaking with great precision, and in the low tone of a man who communicates an important secret — " In that house with the green gate, Mr. Weller, they keep a good many servants."

" So I should think, from the look on it," interposed Sam.

" Yes," continued Mr. Trotter, " and one of them is a cook, who has saved up a little money, Mr. Weller, and is desirous, if she can establish herself in life, to open a little shop in the chandlery way, you see."

" Yes."

" Yes, Mr. Weller. Well, Sir, I met her at a chapel that I go to— a very neat little chapel in this town, Mr. Weller, where they sing the number four collection of hymns, which I generally carry about with me, in a little book, which you may perhaps have seen in my hand — and I got a little intimate with her, Mr. Weller, and from that, an acquaintance sprung up between us, and I may venture to say, Mr, Weller, that I am to be the chandler."

" Ah, and a wery amiable chandler you'll make," replied Sam, eye- ing Job with a side look of intense dislike.

" The great advantage of this, Mr. Weller," continued Job, his eyes filling with tears as he spoke, " will be, that I shall be able to leave my present disgraceful service with that bad man, and to devote myself to a better and more virtuous life — more like the way in which I was brought up, Mr. Weller."

" You must ha' been wery nicely brought up," said Sam.

" Oh, very, Mr. Weller, very," replied Job ; and at the recollection of the purity of his youthful days, Mr. Trotter pulled forth the pink handkerchief, and wept copiously.

"You must ha' been an uncommon nice boy, to go to school vith," said Sam.