Well,' said Mary, 'I never did!'

O' course not,' said Sam, 'and nobody never did, nor never vill

neither; and here am I a-walkin' about like the wandering Jew - a

sportin' character you have perhaps heerd on Mary, my dear, as vos

alvays doin' a match agin' time, and never vent to sleep - looking arter

this here Miss Arabella Allen.'

Miss who?' said Mary, in great astonishment.

Miss Arabella Allen,' said Sam.

Goodness gracious!' said Mary, pointing to the garden door which the

sulky groom had locked after him. 'Why, it's that very house; she's

been living there these six weeks. Their upper house- maid, which is

lady's-maid too, told me all about it over the wash-house palin's

before the family was out of bed, one mornin'.'

Wot, the wery next door to you?' said Sam.

The very next,' replied Mary.

Mr Weller was so deeply overcome on receiving this intelligence that

he found it absolutely necessary to cling to his fair informant for

support; and divers little love passages had passed between them,

before he was sufficiently collected to return to the subject.

Vell,' said Sam at length, 'if this don't beat cock-fightin' nothin' never

vill, as the lord mayor said, ven the chief secretary o' state proposed

his missis's health arter dinner. That wery next house! Wy, I've got a

message to her as I've been a-trying all day to deliver.'

Ah,' said Mary, 'but you can't deliver it now, because she only walks

in the garden in the evening, and then only for a very little time; she

never goes out, without the old lady.'

Sam ruminated for a few moments, and finally hit upon the following

plan of operations; that he should return just at dusk - the time at

which Arabella invariably took her walk - and, being admitted by Mary

into the garden of the house to which she belonged, would contrive to

scramble up the wall, beneath the overhanging boughs of a large pear-

tree, which would effectually screen him from observation; would

there deliver his message, and arrange, if possible, an interview on

behalf of Mr Winkle for the ensuing evening at the same hour. Having

made this arrangement with great despatch, he assisted Mary in the

long-deferred occupation of shaking the carpets.

The Pickwick Papers