There was a very snug little party, consisting of Maria Lobbs and her

cousin Kate, and three or four romping, good-humoured, rosy-

cheeked girls. Nathaniel Pipkin had ocular demonstration of the fact,

that the rumours of old Lobbs's treasures were not exaggerated. There

were the real solid silver teapot, cream-ewer, and sugar-basin, on the

table, and real silver spoons to stir the tea with, and real china cups

to drink it out of, and plates of the same, to hold the cakes and toast

in. The only eye-sore in the whole place was another cousin of Maria

Lobbs's, and a brother of Kate, whom Maria Lobbs called ‘Henry,’ and

who seemed to keep Maria Lobbs all to himself, up in one corner of

the table. It's a delightful thing to see affection in families, but it may

be carried rather too far, and Nathaniel Pipkin could not help thinking

that Maria Lobbs must be very particularly fond of her relations, if she

paid as much attention to all of them as to this individual cousin.

After tea, too, when the wicked little cousin proposed a game at blind

man's buff, it somehow or other happened that Nathaniel Pipkin was

nearly always blind, and whenever he laid his hand upon the male

cousin, he was sure to find that Maria Lobbs was not far off. And

though the wicked little cousin and the other girls pinched him, and

pulled his hair, and pushed chairs in his way, and all sorts of things,

Maria Lobbs never seemed to come near him at all; and once - once -

Nathaniel Pipkin could have sworn he heard the sound of a kiss,

followed by a faint remonstrance from Maria Lobbs, and a half-

suppressed laugh from her female friends. All this was odd - very odd

and there is no saying what Nathaniel Pipkin might or might not

have done, in consequence, if his thoughts had not been suddenly

directed into a new channel.

The circumstance which directed his thoughts into a new channel

was a loud knocking at the street door, and the person who made this

loud knocking at the street door was no other than old Lobbs himself,

who had unexpectedly returned, and was hammering away, like a

coffin-maker; for he wanted his supper. The alarming intelligence was

no sooner communicated by the bony apprentice with the thin legs,

than the girls tripped upstairs to Maria Lobbs's bedroom, and the

male cousin and Nathaniel Pipkin were thrust into a couple of closets

in the sitting-room, for want of any better places of concealment; and

when Maria Lobbs and the wicked little cousin had stowed them

away, and put the room to rights, they opened the street door to old

Lobbs, who had never left off knocking since he first began.

Now it did unfortunately happen that old Lobbs being very hungry

was monstrous cross. Nathaniel Pipkin could hear him growling away

like an old mastiff with a sore throat; and whenever the unfortunate

apprentice with the thin legs came into the room, so surely did old

Lobbs commence swearing at him in a most Saracenic and ferocious

manner, though apparently with no other end or object than that of

easing his bosom by the discharge of a few superfluous oaths. At

The Pickwick Papers