Page:The Posthumous Papers of the Pickwick Club.djvu/606

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have forgotten it ; never ceased to think how great your sufferings must have been in this shocking place, but I hoped that what no consideration for yourself would induce you to do, a regard to our happiness might. If my brother hears of this first from you, I feel certain we shall be reconciled. He is my only relation in the world, Mr. Pickwick, and unless you plead for me, I fear I have lost even him. I have done wrong — very, very wrong, I know." Here poor Arabella hid her face in her handkerchief, and wept bitterly.

Mr. Pickwick's nature was a good deal worked upon by these same tears, but when Mrs. Winkle, drying her eyes, took to coaxing and entreating in the sweetest tones of a very sweet voice, he became par- ticularly restless, and evidently undecided how to act, as was evinced by sundry nervous rubbings of his spectacle-glasses, nose, tights, head, and gaiters.

Taking advantage of these symptoms of indecision, Mr. Perker (to whom it appeared the young couple had driven straight that morning) urged with legal point and shrewdness that Mr. Winkle, senior, was still unacquainted with the important rise in life's flight of steps which his son had taken; that the future expectations of the said son depended entirely upon the said Winkle senior continuing to regard him with undiminished feelings of affection and attachment, which it was very unlikely he would do if this great event were long kept a secret from him ; that Mr. Pickwick repairing to Bristol to seek Mr. Allen, might with equal reason repair to Birmingham to seek Mr. Winkle, senior ; lastly, that Mr. Winkle, senior, had good right and title to consider Mr. Pickwick as in some degree the guardian and adviser of his son, and that it consequently behoved that gentleman, and was indeed due to his personal character, to acquaint the aforesaid Winkle, senior, personally, and by word of mouth, with the whole circumstances of the case, and with the share he had taken in the transaction.

Mr. Tupman and Mr. Snodgrass arrived most opportunely in this stage of the pleadings, and as it was necessary to explain to them all that had occurred, together with the various reasons pro and con, the whole of the arguments were gone over again, after which everybody urged every argument in his own way and at his own length. And at last Mr. Pickwick, fairly argued and remonstrated out of all his resolutions, and being in imminent danger of being argued and remon- strated out of his wits, caught Arabella in his arms, and declaring that she was a very amiable creature, and that he didn't know how it was, but he had always been very fond of her from the first, said he could never find it in his heart to stand in the way of. young people's happi- ness, and they might do with him as they pleased.

Mr. Weller's first act, on hearing this concession, was to dispatch Job Trotter to the illustrious Mr. Pell, with an authority to deliver to the bearer the formal discharge which his prudent parent had had the foresight to leave in the hands of that learned gentleman, in case it should be at any time required on an emergency ; his next proceeding was to invest his whole stock of ready money in the purchase of five- and-twenty gallons of mild porter, which he himself dispensed on the racket ground to everybody who would partake of it; this done, he