Chapter LII

Involving A Serious Change In The Weller Family, And The

Untimely Downfall Of Mr Stiggins

Considering it a matter of delicacy to abstain from introducing either

Bob Sawyer or Ben Allen to the young couple, until they were fully

prepared to expect them, and wishing to spare Arabella's feelings as

much as possible, Mr Pickwick proposed that he and Sam should

alight in the neighbourhood of the George and Vulture, and that the

two young men should for the present take up their quarters

elsewhere. To this they very readily agreed, and the proposition was

accordingly acted upon; Mr Ben Allen and Mr Bob Sawyer betaking

themselves to a sequestered pot-shop on the remotest confines of the

Borough, behind the bar door of which their names had in other days

very often appeared at the head of long and complex calculations

worked in white chalk.

Dear me, Mr Weller,' said the pretty housemaid, meeting Sam at the

door.

Dear ME I vish it vos, my dear,' replied Sam, dropping behind, to let

his master get out of hearing. 'Wot a sweet- lookin' creetur you are,

Mary!'

Lot, Mr Weller, what nonsense you do talk!' said Mary. 'Oh! don't, Mr

Weller.’

Don't what, my dear?' said Sam.

Why, that,' replied the pretty housemaid. 'Lor, do get along with you.'

Thus admonishing him, the pretty housemaid pushed Sam against

the wall, declaring that he had tumbled her cap, and put her hair

quite out of curl.

And prevented what I was going to say, besides,' added Mary. 'There's

a letter been waiting here for you four days; you hadn't gone away,

half an hour, when it came; and more than that, it's got ‘immediate,’

on the outside.'

Vere is it, my love?' inquired Sam.

'I took care of it, for you, or I dare say it would have been lost long

before this,' replied Mary. 'There, take it; it's more than you deserve.'

With these words, after many pretty little coquettish doubts and fears,

and wishes that she might not have lost it, Mary produced the letter

The Pickwick Papers