Pickwick Abroad: A Companion to the Pickwick Papers — page 125: what you’re looking at

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PICKWICK ABROAD, ‘them as has money doesn’t care about dress; and them as hasn’t can’t care”—So Bob vos introduced to Lady Catamaran’s sitting-room, jist as the old dowager had ut her brandy-flask under the cushion of the sofy.—‘ Dress don’t make the man, says old Lady Catamaran to herself, as she glanced her eye at Bob’s coat, the elbers af vich vos precious vite, sure-ly; ‘but manners does, she added, seein’ that Bob vos a-bowin’ avay like a master o’ the cere- monies at a county-ball--So she wery perlitely rekvested the gen’leman to be seated, and inquired vot he’d be arter pro- posing’ for the carriage.—‘ Oh ! the carriage is it, my Lady? eries Bob. ‘Och! and sure you're not thinkin’ I’m come to spake. about that? Is it me, your Ladyship’s honor, as can’t afford to step into a clane shirt, that can step into a coach ?’?—‘ Vot, then, may be your hobject in callin’ on me, my good Sir? says her Ladyship.— That’s it entirely, my Lady, says Bob: ‘to do you good—to perwent you havin’ the trouble o’ sendin’ your advertisement to the Hagle, ’m come jist for to fetch it for the Nightingale. At vot hour shall I call to-morrow, my Lady ?—‘I'm wery much obleeged, Sir,” says Lady Catamaran ; ‘ but IT ain't a-goin for to insert it no more,— ‘Och! an’ you vill, plase your Ladyship’s honor, says Bob, ‘both for your own good and the good o’ the Nightingale, as is the best of all the evening papers. And then, only think vot a dale o’ trouble you'd save yourself, my Lady,’ continues Bob, ‘if, ven you're in your own house, and inclined for to give a swarry, instead o’ sendin’ out five hundred inwitations by a futman, you vos jist to throw in a bit of a adwertisement in the Nightingale ;—Lady Catamaran ex- pects all her friends to tay aw a dance on Vensday. Och! an’ it ud soon be the fashion !-—‘ [?'s a wery bright hidear, says Lady Catamaran, ‘an’ Pll sartainly think on it. In the meantime—’— In the manetime Pil call every day, my Lady, wid your lave,’ says Bob, ‘ till you've got a inwite for me to put into the Nightingale’—-Vell, Sir, all this ended in Bab’s so insinivatin’ his- self into the good graces o the old lady, that she orders hin: a goo’ someot short, an’ gives him her adwertisement for the car- riage every day till she disposed on it. Wery generous conduct it where too, as the poor man said ven the overseer gived him half a loaf for his vife and nine small children.” 8 113 Thus, conversation, eating, drinking, and sleeping passed away the time as usual; and on the following evening the Pickwick- lans prepared for the masquérade. Mr. Pickwick himself determined to maintain his celebrated and well-known character, and to personate ina fancy dress the Traveller he was in reality. He there- fore composed his attire of the characteris- tic vestments of many nations, which he commingled together in the most interest- ing and harmonious fashion his fertile brain could suggest. He wore a pair of large Turkish trowsers tied loosely just below the knees; and his feet and ankles were em- bellished with Scotch sandels. His waist- coat was of rein-deer skin, to indicate the attire of the Laplander; and his coat was the one he was in the daily habit of wear- ing, and which had been fabricated in Eng- land. His gloves were formed of the hide of a Russian bear; and his neckcloth was a musk-rat skin imported from the wilds of America, On his head he wore a Mandarin skull-cap ; and in his right hand he carried the tail of a lion originally caught in the interior of Africa, . Around his neck hang a chain of shells such as the savages of dis- tant islands use for the current coin of their realms ; and lastly, his expressive features were concealed by a Spanish mask. Mr. Tupman had not been less ingenious than his great leader in the choice of suit- able raiment; and with that disdain for a too servile imitation which often character- izes the minds of eminent men, he, properly regardless of the discrepancy in cubic pre- portions between himself and the fabulous little deity of the heathen mythology, de- termined upon the personation of Cupid. He accordingly obtained a mask which bestowed upon him a pair of good fat cheeks and a very pouting mouth; and as he could not exactly preserve the primitive state of nature in which the God of Love is usually represented, he wisely adopted the dress of an ancient Roman, with the addi- tion of a pair of large wings which he and Mr. Snodgrass fabricated with wires and pink gauae-paper. Add to these little articles of vestment, a bow and a quiver full of arrows; and the portrait of Mr Tupman is complete. Mr. Snodgrass ably sustained the charae- | ter for talent and ingenuity which so highly =~ distinguished his illustrious friends. He had taken upon himself the enviable but somewhat ‘ifficult task of personating the * COMICGHOOKS.COM