Page:The Posthumous Papers of the Pickwick Club.djvu/568

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manner, that Mr. Pickwick involuntarily looked at his two friends for explanation.

" We don't know/' said Mr. Tupman, answering this mute appeal aloud. " He has been much excited for two days past, and his whole demeanour very unlike what it usually is. We feared there must be something the matter, but he resolutely denies it."

" No, no," said Mr. Winkle, colouring beneath Mr. Pickwick's gaze; " there is really nothing. I assure you there is nothing, my dear Sir. It will be necessary for me to leave town for a short time on private business, and I had hoped to have prevailed upon you to allow Sam to accompany me."

Mr. Pickwick looked more astonished than before. "I think," faultered Mr. Winkle, "that Sam would have had no objection to do so; but of course his being a prisoner here, renders it impossible. So I must go alone."

As Mr. Winkle said these words, Mr. Pickwick felt, with some asto- nishment, that Sam's fingers were trembling at the gaiters, as if he were rather surprised or startled. He looked up at Mr. Winkle, too, when he had finished speaking, and though the glance they exchanged was instantaneous, they seemed to understand each other.

"Do you know anything of this, Sam?" said Mr. Pickwick sharply.

" No, I don't, Sir," replied Mr. Weller, beginning to button with extraordinary assiduity.

"Are you sure, Sam ?" said Mr. Pickwick.

'^ Vy, Sir," responded Mr. Weller; "I'm sure so far, that I've never heerd anythin' on the subject afore this moment. If I makes any guess about it," added Sam, looking at Mr. Winkle, "I haven't got any right to say wot it is, 'fear it should be a wrong 'un."

"I have no right to make any further enquiry into the private affairs of a friend, however intimate a one," said Mr. Pickwick, after a short silence; "at present let me merely say, that I do not understand this at all. There — we have had quite enough of the subject."

Thus expressing himself, Mr. Pickwick led the conversation to dif- ferent topics, and Mr. Winkle gradually appeared more at ease, though still very far from being completely so. They had all so much to con- verse about, that the morning very quickly passed away ; and when at three o'clock Mr. Weller produced upon the little dining table, a roast leg of mutton and an enormous meat pie, with sundry dishes of vege- tables, and pots of porter, which stood upon the chairs or the sofa- bedstead, or where they could, every body felt disposed to do justice to the meal, notwithstanding that the meat had been purchased and dressed, and the pie made and baked at the prison cookery hard by.

To these succeeded a bottle or two of very good wine, for which a messenger was dispatched by Mr. Pickwick to the Horn Coffeehouse, in Doctors' Commons. The bottle or two, indeed, might be more properly described as a bottle or six, for by the time it was drunk and tea over, the bell began to ring for strangers to withdraw.