Have you any idea who the object of it might be?' asked Mr Winkle,

with great trepidation.

Mr Ben Allen seized the poker, flourished it in a warlike manner above

his head, inflicted a savage blow on an imaginary skull, and wound up

by saying, in a very expressive manner, that he only wished he could

guess; that was all.

I'd show him what I thought of him,' said Mr Ben Allen. And round

went the poker again, more fiercely than before.

All this was, of course, very soothing to the feelings of Mr Winkle, who

remained silent for a few minutes; but at length mustered up

resolution to inquire whether Miss Allen was in Kent.

No, no,' said Mr Ben Allen, laying aside the poker, and looking very

cunning; 'I didn't think Wardle's exactly the place for a headstrong

girl; so, as I am her natural protector and guardian, our parents being

dead, I have brought her down into this part of the country to spend a

few months at an old aunt's, in a nice, dull, close place. I think that

will cure her, my boy. If it doesn't, I'll take her abroad for a little while,

and see what that'll do.'

'Oh, the aunt's is in Bristol, is it?' faltered Mr Winkle.

No, no, not in Bristol,' replied Mr Ben Allen, jerking his thumb over

his right shoulder; 'over that way - down there. But, hush, here's Bob.

Not a word, my dear friend, not a word.'

Short as this conversation was, it roused in Mr Winkle the highest

degree of excitement and anxiety. The suspected prior attachment

rankled in his heart. Could he be the object of it? Could it be for him

that the fair Arabella had looked scornfully on the sprightly Bob

Sawyer, or had he a successful rival? He determined to see her, cost

what it might; but here an insurmountable objection presented itself,

for whether the explanatory 'over that way,' and 'down there,' of Mr

Ben Allen, meant three miles off, or thirty, or three hundred, he could

in no wise guess.

But he had no opportunity of pondering over his love just then, for

Bob Sawyer's return was the immediate precursor of the arrival of a

meat-pie from the baker's, of which that gentleman insisted on his

staying to partake. The cloth was laid by an occasional charwoman,

who officiated in the capacity of Mr Bob Sawyer's housekeeper; and a

third knife and fork having been borrowed from the mother of the boy

in the gray livery (for Mr Sawyer's domestic arrangements were as yet

conducted on a limited scale), they sat down to dinner; the beer being

served up, as Mr Sawyer remarked, 'in its native pewter.'

The Pickwick Papers