Page:The Posthumous Papers of the Pickwick Club.djvu/694

586 586 POSTHUMOUS PAPERS OF

"Wot are you a-doin' on, you lunatic?" said Sam, snatching the paper away, as his parent, in all innocence, stirred the fire preparatory to suiting the action to the word. " You're a nice eggzekiter, you are.'*

" Vy not ?" enquired Mr. Weller, looking sternly round, with the poker in his hand.

" Vy not ! " exclaimed Sam, — " 'cos it must be proved, and probated, and sworn to, and all manner o' formalities."

" You don't mean that ? " said Mr. Weller, laying down the poker.

Sam buttoned the will carefully in a side pocket, intimating by a look meanwhile, that he did mean it, and very seriously too.

" Then I'll tell you wot it is," said Mr. Weller, after a short medita- tion, " this is a case for that 'ere confidential pal o' the Chancellorship's. Pell must look into this, Sammy. He's the man for a difficult question at law. Ve'll have this here brought afore the Solvent court directly, Samivel."

" I never did see such a addle-headed old creetur !" exclaimed Sam, irritably, *' Old Baileys, and Solvent Courts, and alleybis, and ev'ry species o' gammon alvays a-runnin' through his brain. You'd better get your out o' door clothes on, and come to town about this bisness, than stand a preachin' there about wot you don't understand nothin' of."

 Wery good, Sammy, replied Mr. Weller. *^I'm quite agreeable to anythin' as vill hexpedite business, Sammy. But mind this here, my boy, nobody but Pell — nobody but Pell as a legal ad wiser."

^' I don't want anybody else," replied Sam. — '^ Now, are you a- comin' } "

'^ Vait a minit, Sammy," replied Mr. Weller, who, having tied his shawl with the aid of a small glass that hung in the window, was now, by dint of the most wonderful exertions, struggling into his upper garments. "Vait a minit, Sammy; ven you grow as old as your father, you von't get into your veskit quite as easy as you do now, my boy."

" If I couldn't get into it easier than that, I'm blessed if I'd vear vun at all," rejoined his son.

" You think so now," said Mr. Weller, with the gravity of age, " but you'll find that as you get vider you'll get viser. Vidth and visdom, Sammy, alvays grows together."

As Mr. Weller delivered this infallible maxim — the result of many years' personal experience and observation — he contrived, by a dexterous twist of his body, to get the bottom button of his coat to perform its office. Having paused a few seconds to recover breath, he brushed his hat with his elbow, and declared himself ready.

" As four heads is better than two, Sammy," said Mr. Weller, as they drove along the London road in the chaise cart, " and as all this here property is a wery great temptation to a legal gen'lm'n, ve'll take a couple o' friends o' mine vith us, as '11 be wery soon down upon him if he comes anythin' irreg'lar ; two o' them as saw you to the Fleet that day. They're the wery best judges," added Mr. Weller in a half whisper, " the wery best judges of a horse you ever know'd."

" And of a lawyer too .'' " enquired Sam.


 * ^ The man as can form a ackerate judgment of a animal, can form