Mr Bob Sawyer peeped into the shop to see that no stranger was

within hearing, and leaning forward to Mr Winkle, said, in a low tone -

He leaves it all at the wrong houses.'

Mr Winkle looked perplexed, and Bob Sawyer and his friend laughed.

Don't you see?' said Bob. 'He goes up to a house, rings the area bell,

pokes a packet of medicine without a direction into the servant's

hand, and walks off. Servant takes it into the dining- parlour; master

opens it, and reads the label: ‘Draught to be taken at bedtime - pills

as before - lotion as usual - the powder. From Sawyer's, late

Nockemorf's. Physicians' prescriptions carefully prepared,’ and all the

rest of it. Shows it to his wife - she reads the label; it goes down to

the servants - THEY read the label. Next day, boy calls: ‘Very sorry -

his mistake - immense business - great many parcels to deliver - Mr

Sawyer's compliments - late Nockemorf.’ The name gets known, and

that's the thing, my boy, in the medical way. Bless your heart, old

fellow, it's better than all the advertising in the world. We have got one

four-ounce bottle that's been to half the houses in Bristol, and hasn't

done yet.'

Dear me, I see,' observed Mr Winkle; 'what an excellent plan!'

Oh, Ben and I have hit upon a dozen such,' replied Bob Sawyer, with

great glee. 'The lamplighter has eighteenpence a week to pull the

night-bell for ten minutes every time he comes round; and my boy

always rushes into the church just before the psalms, when the

people have got nothing to do but look about 'em, and calls me out,

with horror and dismay depicted on his countenance. ‘Bless my soul,’

everybody says, ‘somebody taken suddenly ill! Sawyer, late Nockemorf,

sent for. What a business that young man has!’'

At the termination of this disclosure of some of the mysteries of

medicine, Mr Bob Sawyer and his friend, Ben Allen, threw themselves

back in their respective chairs, and laughed boisterously. When they

had enjoyed the joke to their heart's content, the discourse changed to

topics in which Mr Winkle was more immediately interested.

We think we have hinted elsewhere, that Mr Benjamin Allen had a

way of becoming sentimental after brandy. The case is not a peculiar

one, as we ourself can testify, having, on a few occasions, had to deal

with patients who have been afflicted in a similar manner. At this

precise period of his existence, Mr Benjamin Allen had perhaps a

greater predisposition to maudlinism than he had ever known before;

the cause of which malady was briefly this. He had been staying

nearly three weeks with Mr Bob Sawyer; Mr Bob Sawyer was not

remarkable for temperance, nor was Mr Benjamin Allen for the

The Pickwick Papers