Pickwick Abroad: A Companion to the Pickwick Papers — page 128: what you’re looking at

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116 “T rayther think that any von as has got a ticket can go to the balls in France,” an- swered Mr. Weller: “at all ewents I’m here ; an’ a self-evident propysition it there- fore is. As for motives, Mr. Vinkle, I has a dozen on ’em, cut an’ dry, as the under- taker said to the ’ooman ven she asked him arter a coffin for her husband as vos at the pint o’ death.” | “Well, what are they, Sam ?” contmued Mr. Winkle. ' “Beg pardon, sir,” said Mr. Weller, “but I thought as how that your dresses vos so wery orkard, there might be a little incon- wenience re-sulting from their wery pekoo- liar ef-fect. So I jist dropt in to keep a look out arter the governor. You needn’t say Pm here, Mr. Vinkle—nor you, neither, Mr. Snodgrass: an’ if so be there ain’t no row, you needn't remark as how I’ve been, vich is vot the new police says ven they go in disguise to public meetin’s.” Having delivered this caution, Mr. Wel- \er mingled with the throngs of masks, and amused himself in a variety of original and mtellectual ways. He pulled the pig-tail of a Voltaire, flattened the crown on the head of a king, kindly offered to box with an emperor fora bowl of punch, and as- sured a duchess “that she was the prettiest gal as ever he'd seen,” although she wore a mask. ‘These jokes were taken for the ' forced ebullitions of an assumed character, and not for the spontaneous effusions of in- nate facetiousness. Towards one o'clock the ladies began to take their departure, and the gentlemen were consequently enabled to give more scope to their merriment, and to a small system of practical joke. A party of young Englishmen, who were considered, or con- sidered themselves, (the phrases are synon- ymous in modern fashionable life,) to be wags in their way, now paid more particu- Jar attention to the fancy dresses of the Pickwickians than they hitherto had done ; and upon the suggestion of one of them that the Poet or Bard ought to be mounted upon Pegasus, they very deliberately seized held of Mr. Tupman and pitched him upon the back of Mr. Augustus Snodgrass, who fell, beneath the weight, a heavy load upon the floor. . Mr. Pickwick, whose brain was somewhat confused with hot punch and the excite- ment of the evening, rushed valiantly for- ward, and laid about him amongst the young English assailants with his ponder- PICKWICK ABROAD. a ous lion’s tail; but those young gentlemen, not relishing this species of warfare, were preparing to make a desperate onslaught: on Mr. Pickwick and his friends, when there suddenly appeared amongst them an indi- vidual, habited as a Gipsy, who began knocking two or three of them down with- out the slightest reference to any modern ceremony, and in the most masculine man- ner in the world. The warfare soon became general. Mr. Pickwick continued to lay about him with his: lion’s tail, and without any attention to which side he attacked; Mr. Tupman caught hold of his great leader’s coat-tail and begged him to moderate his anger; Mr. Winkle hastened to conceal himself behind one of the Corinthian pillars; Mr. Snod- grass had somehow or another got his arms and legs entangled in’ his quadru- pedian attire, and could not rise from the ground. But Mr. Weller fought for himself and his masters too. He knocked one antagonist over Mr. Snodgrass, and then knocked him off again; he noticed that another had a somewhat prominent nose, and so he flat- tered it a little, to harmonize the better with the rest of its proprietor’s countenance ; he perceived that a third had two fine large blue eyes, and he therefore varied their usual appearance by making them black ones; and lastly, he perpetrated a little miniature Marengo by the numbers he levelled with the ground. The assailants, however, rallied again; and the combat would have been sanguinarv in the extreme, had not a couple of Gendarmes made their appearance, and separated the pugilists in the twinkling of an eye. “Vell, this is rayther hot vork,” said Mr. Weller, as he yielded to the advice of a Gendarme, and retreated from the field of action. “ Drinks is in, vits is out.” “What! is that you, Sam?” inquired Mr. Pickwick, as he sank upon a seat “My own wery na’tral self, an’ no sang- vinary mistake, as the speret o’ Mrs. Weale used for to say on wery partickler oc- casions,” returned Mr. Weller, laving aside hismask. “An’ wery glad I an for to see you, Sir, as the gen’leman said wo the ghost vich told him of a treasure.” “Ts any assistance wanted to thrash those fellows ?” exclaimed Mr. Winkle, suddenly emerging from behind the pillar with his javelins in his hand. “Only tell me where they are—” 10)(0YO) (9) * (CO (GO)