Page:The Posthumous Papers of the Pickwick Club.djvu/618

518 518 POSTHUMOUS PAPERS OF

CHAPTER XLVIII.

CONTAINING THE STORY OF THE BAGMAN's UNCLE.

"' My uncle, gentlemen," said tlie bagman, " was one of the mer- riest, pleasantest, cleverest fellows that ever lived. I wish you had known him, gentlemen. On second thoughts, gentlemen, I don't wish you had known him, for if you had, you would have been all by this time in the ordinary course of nature, if not dead, at all events so near it, as to have taken to stopping at home and giving up company, which would have deprived me of the inestimable pleasure of address- ing you at this moment. Gentlemen, I wish your fathers and mothers had known my uncle. They would have been amazingly fond of him, especially vour respectable mothers, I know they would. If any two of his numerous virtues predominated over the many that adorned his character, I should say they were his mixed punch and his after- supper scmg. Excuse my dwelling upon these melancholy recollections of departed worth ; you won't see a man like my uncle every day in the week.

" I have always considered it a great point in my uncle's character, gentlemen, that he was the intimate friend and companion of Tom Smart, of the great house of Bilson and Slum, Cateaton Street, City. My uncle collected for Tiggin and Welps, but for a long time he went pretty near the same journey as Tom ; and the verv first night they met, my uncle took a fancy for Tom, and Tom took a fancy for my uncle. They made a bet of a new hat before they had known each other half an hour, who should brew the best quart of punch and drink it the quickest. My uncle was judged to have won the making, but Tom Smart beat him in the drinking by about half a salt-spoon-full. They took another quart a-piece to drink each other's health in, and were staunch friends ever afterwards. There 's a destiny in these things gentlemen ; we can't help it.

" In personal appearance, my uncle was a trifle shorter than the middle size ; he was a thought stouter too, than the ordinary run of people, and perhaps his face might be a shade redder. He had the jolliest face you ever saw, gentlemen : something like Punch, with a handsomer nose and chin; his eyes were always twinkling and sparkling with good humour, and a smile — not one of your unmeaning wooden grins, but a real, merry, hearty, good-tempered smile, was perpetually on his countenance. He was pitched out of his gig once, and knocked head first against a mile-stone. There he lay, stunned, and so cut about the face with some gravel which had been heaped up alongside it, that, to use my uncle's own strong expression, if his mother could have revisited the earth, she wouldn't have known him. Indeed, when I come to think of the matter, gentlemen, I feel pretty sure she wouldn't, for