Page:The Posthumous Papers of the Pickwick Club.djvu/494

408 408 POSTHUMOUS PAPERS OF

Arabella had unaccountably and un dutifully evinced the most deter- mined antipathy to his person.

" And I think," said Mr. Ben Allen, in conclusion, '< / think there *s a prior attachment."

"Have you any idea who the object of it maybe?" asked Mr. Winkle, vi^ith great trepidation.

Mr. Ben Allen seized the poker, flourished it, in a warlike manner above his head, inflicted a savage blow on an imaginary skull, and wound up by saying, in a very expressive manner, that he only wished he could guess — that was all.

round went the poker again, more fiercely than before.
 * ' I 'd show him what I thought of him," said Mr. Ben Allen. And

All this, was of course very soothing to the feelings of Mr. Winkle, who remained silent for a few minutes ; but at length mustered up re- solution to inquire whether Miss Allen was in Kent.

" No, no," said Mr. Ben Allen, laying aside the poker, and looking very cunning ; " I didn't think Wardle's exactly the place for a head- strong girl ; so, as I am her natural protector and guardian, our parents being dead, I have brought her down into this part of the country to spend a few months at an old aunt's, in a nice, dull, close place. I think that will cure her, my boy ; and if it doesn't, I '11 take her abroad for a little while, and see what that'll do."

" Oh, the aunt's is in Bristol, is it ? " faltered Mr. Winkle.

" No, no — not in Bristol," replied Mr. Ben Allen, jerking his thumb over his right shoulder: "over that way — down there. But, hush, here's Bob. Not a word, my dear friend — not a word."

Short as this conversation was, it roused in Mr. Winkle the highest -degree of excitement and anxiety. The suspected prior attachment rankled in his heart. Could he be the object of it? Could it be for him that the fair Arabella had looked scornfully on the sprightly Bob Sawyer, or had he a successful rival ? He determined to see her, cost what it might ; but here an insurmountable objection presented itself, for whether the explanatory " over that way," and " down there," of Mr. Ben Allen, meant three miles off, or thirty, or three hundred, he could in no wise guess.

But he had no opportunity of pondering over his love just then, for Bob Sawyer's return was the immediate precursor of the arrival of a meat pie from the baker's, of which that gentleman insisted on his staying to partake. The cloth was laid by an occasional chairwoman, who officiated in the capacity of Mr. Bob Sawyer's housekeeper ; and a third knife and fork having been borrowed from the mother of the boy in the grey livery (for Mr. Sawyer's domestic arrangements were as yet conducted on a limited scale), they sat down to dinner; the beer being served up, as Mr. Sawyer remarked, " in its native pewter."

After dinner, Mr. Bob Sawyer ordered in the largest mortar in the shop, and proceeded to brew a reeking jorum of rum-punch therein, stirring up and amalgamating the materials with a pestle in a very cre- ditable and apothecary-like manner. Mr. Sawyer being a bachelor, had