Page:The Posthumous Papers of the Pickwick Club.djvu/491

405 THE PICKWICK CLUB. 405

and Paving". I think the Church-rates guesses who I am, and I know the Water-works does, because I drew a tooth of his, when I first came down here. — But come in, come in." Chattering in this way, Mr. Bob Sawyer pushed Mr. Winkle into the back room, where, amusing him- self by boring little circular caverns in the chimney-piece with a red-hot poker, sat no less a person than Mr. Benjamin Allen.

" Well," said Mr. Winkle, " this is indeed a pleasure that I did not expect. W^hat a very nice place you have here !"

" Pretty well, pretty well," replied Bob Sawyer. " I passed, soon after that precious party, and ray friends came down with the needful for this business ; so I put on a black suit of clothes and a pair of spec- tacles, and came here, to look as solemn as I could."

" And a very snug- little business you have, no doubt ?" said Mr. Winkle, knowingly.

years you might put all the profits in a wine glass, and cover 'em oyer with a gooseberry leaf."
 * ' Very," replied Bob Sawyer. " So snug, that at the end of a few

" You cannot surely mean that?" said Mr. Winkle. " The stock itself "

" Dummies, my dear boy," said Bob Sawyer ; " half the drawers have got nothing in 'era, and the other half don't open."

" Nonsense I '' said Mr. Winkle.

" Fact — honour!" returned Bob Sawyer, stepping out into the shop, and demonstrating the veracity of the assertion by divers hard pulls at the little gilt knobs on the counterfeit drawers. " Hardly any thing- real in the shop but the leeches, and thei/ are secondhand."

" I shouldn't have thought it!" exclaimed Mr. Winkle, much sur- prised.

" I hope not," replied Bob Sawyer, " else where 's the use of appear- ances, eh ? But what will you take ! Do as we do ? — that 's right. Ben, my fine fellow, put your hand into the cupboard, and bring out the patent digester."

Mr. Benjamin Allen smiled his readiness, and produced from the closet at his elbow a black bottle half full of brandy.

" You don't take water, of course ?" said Bob Sawyer.

" Thank you," replied Mr. Winkle. " It 's rather early : I should like to qualify it, if you have no objection."

" None in the least, if you can reconcile it to your conscience/' re- plied Bob Sawyer; tossing oif, as he spoke, a glass of the liquor with great relish. — " Ben, the pipkin."

Mr. Benjamin Allen drew forth from the same hiding-place a small brass pipkin,'which Bob Sawyer observed he prided himself upon, parti- cularly, because it looked so business-like. The water in the profes- sional pipkin having been made to boil, in course of time, by va- rious little shovels-full of coal, which Mr. Bob Sawyer took out of a practicable window-seat, labelled " Soda Water," Mr. Winkle adulterated his brandy ; and the conversation was becoming general, when it was interrupted by the entrance into the shop of a boy, in a sober grey livery and a gold-laced hat, with a small covered basket under his arm,

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