What about the land? - Nothing the matter, is there?'

No, no. Mr Miller was saying our land was better than Mullins's

Meadows.'

How should he know anything about it?'inquired the old lady

indignantly. 'Miller's a conceited coxcomb, and you may tell him I said

so.' Saying which, the old lady, quite unconscious that she had

spoken above a whisper, drew herself up, and looked carving-knives at

the hard-headed delinquent.

'Come, come,' said the bustling host, with a natural anxiety to change

the conversation, 'what say you to a rubber, Mr Pickwick?'

I should like it of all things,' replied that gentleman; 'but pray don't

make up one on my account.'

Oh, I assure you, mother's very fond of a rubber,' said Mr Wardle;

ain't you, mother?'

The old lady, who was much less deaf on this subject than on any

other, replied in the affirmative.

'Joe, Joe!' said the gentleman; 'Joe - damn that - oh, here he is; put

out the card - tables.'

The lethargic youth contrived without any additional rousing to set

out two card-tables; the one for Pope Joan, and the other for whist.

The whist-players were Mr Pickwick and the old lady, Mr Miller and

the fat gentleman. The round game comprised the rest of the

company.

The rubber was conducted with all that gravity of deportment and

sedateness of demeanour which befit the pursuit entitled 'whist' - a

solemn observance, to which, as it appears to us, the title of 'game'

has been very irreverently and ignominiously applied. The round-game

table, on the other hand, was so boisterously merry as materially to

interrupt the contemplations of Mr Miller, who, not being quite so

much absorbed as he ought to have been, contrived to commit various

high crimes and misdemeanours, which excited the wrath of the fat

gentleman to a very great extent, and called forth the good-humour of

the old lady in a proportionate degree.

There!' said the criminal Miller triumphantly, as he took up the odd

trick at the conclusion of a hand; 'that could not have been played

better, I flatter myself; impossible to have made another trick!'

The Pickwick Papers