The young lady was not at all softened by these allurements, for she at

once expressed her opinion, that Mr Bob Sawyer was an 'odous

creetur;' and, on his becoming rather more pressing in his attentions,

imprinted her fair fingers upon his face, and bounced out of the room

with many expressions of aversion and contempt.

Deprived of the young lady's society, Mr Bob Sawyer proceeded to

divert himself by peeping into the desk, looking into all the table

drawers, feigning to pick the lock of the iron safe, turning the almanac

with its face to the wall, trying on the boots of Mr Winkle, senior, over

his own, and making several other humorous experiments upon the

furniture, all of which afforded Mr Pickwick unspeakable horror and

agony, and yielded Mr Bob Sawyer proportionate delight.

At length the door opened, and a little old gentleman in a snuff-

coloured suit, with a head and face the precise counterpart of those

belonging to Mr Winkle, junior, excepting that he was rather bald,

trotted into the room with Mr Pickwick's card in one hand, and a

silver candlestick in the other.

Mr Pickwick, sir, how do you do?' said Winkle the elder, putting down

the candlestick and proffering his hand. 'Hope I see you well, sir. Glad

to see you. Be seated, Mr Pickwick, I beg, Sir. This gentleman is - '

'My friend, Mr Sawyer,' interposed Mr Pickwick, 'your son's friend.'

Oh,' said Mr Winkle the elder, looking rather grimly at Bob. 'I hope

you are well, sir.'

Right as a trivet, sir,' replied Bob Sawyer.

This other gentleman,' cried Mr Pickwick, 'is, as you will see when you

have read the letter with which I am intrusted, a very near relative, or

I should rather say a very particular friend of your son's. His name is

Allen.'

THAT gentleman?' inquired Mr Winkle, pointing with the card towards

Ben Allen, who had fallen asleep in an attitude which left nothing of

him visible but his spine and his coat collar.

Mr Pickwick was on the point of replying to the question, and reciting

Mr Benjamin Allen's name and honourable distinctions at full length,

when the sprightly Mr Bob Sawyer, with a view of rousing his friend to

a sense of his situation, inflicted a startling pinch upon the fleshly

part of his arm, which caused him to jump up with a shriek. Suddenly

aware that he was in the presence of a stranger, Mr Ben Allen

advanced and, shaking Mr Winkle most affectionately by both hands

for about five minutes, murmured, in some half-intelligible fragments

The Pickwick Papers