Pickwick Abroad: A Companion to the Pickwick Papers — page 251: what you’re looking at

Machine-transcribed from the original scan — historical spelling and the odd misread are preserved.

A NOVEL WITHOUT A HERO. Sambo ;”’ but seeing Joe ready almost to cry with vexation, the old joker stopped his laughter, and said, holding out his hand to his son, ‘‘ It’s all fair on the Stock Exchange, Jos—and, Sambo, never mind the elephant, but give me and Mr. Jos a glass of cham- pagne. Loney himself hasn’t got such in his cellar, my boy !” A goblet of champagne restored Joseph’s equanimity, and before the bottle was emp- tied, of which as an invalid he took two- thirds, he had agreed to take the young ladies to Vauxhall. ‘‘ The girls must have a gentleman apiece,” said the old gentleman. ‘Jos will be sure to leave Emmy in the crowd, he will be so taken up with Miss Sharp here. Send to 26, and ask George Osborne if he’ll come.” At this, [ don’t know in the Jeast for what reason, Mrs. Sedley looked at her husband and laughed. Mr. Sedley’s eyes twinkled in a manner indescribably roguish; and he Jooked at Amelia, and Amelia, hanging down her head, blushed as only young ladies of seventeen know how to blush, and as Miss Rebecca Sharp never blushed in her life— at least not since she was eight years old, and when she was caught stealing jam out of a cupboard by her godmother. ‘+ Amelia had better write a note,’’ said her father ; ‘sand let George Osborne see what a beau- tiful hand-writing we have brought back from Miss Pinkerton’s. Do you remember when you wrote to him to come on ‘T'welfth- night, Emmy, and spelt twelfth without the f?? : ‘‘'That was years ago,” said Amelia. ‘‘It seems like yesterday, don’t it, John?” said Mrs. Sedley to her husband; and that night, in a conversation which took place in a front room in the second-floor, in a sort of tent, hung round with chintz of a rich: fan- tastic India pattern, and doublé with calico of a tender rose-color; in the interior of which species of marquee was a feather- bed, on which were two pillows, on which were two round red faces, one in a laced night-cap, and one in a simple cotton one, ending in a tassel: ina curtain lecture, I say, Mrs. Sedley took her husband to task for his cruel conduct to poor Joe. ‘It was quite wicked of you, Mr. Sed- ley,’’ said she, ‘¢t0 ‘torment the poor boy So.”’ ‘¢My dear,” said the cotton-tassel in de- fense of his conduct, “Jos is a great deal vainer than you ever were in your life, and that’s saying a good deal. Though, some thirty years ago, in the year seventeen hun- dred and eighty—what was it? perhaps you 21 with him yet. Here is Emmy’s little friend making love to him as hard as she can; that’s quite clear; and if she does not catch him some other will. That man is destined to be a prey to woman, as I am to go on ‘Change every day. It’s amercy he did not bring us over a black daughter-in-law, my dear. But, mark my words, the first wom- an who fishes for him, hooks him.” ‘She shall go off to-morrow, the little artful creature,” said Mrs. Sedley, with great energy. “Why not she as well as another, Mrs. Sedley ? «The girl’s a white face at any rate. J don’t care who marries him. Let Joe please himself.” And presently the voices of the two speakers were hushed, or were replaced by the gentle but unromantic music of the nose; and save when the church bells tolled the hour and the watchman called it, all was silent at the house of John Sedley, Es- quire, of Russell-square, and the Stock Ex- change. . When morning came, the good-natured Mrs. Sedley no longer thought of executing her threats with regard to Miss Sharp; for though nothing is more keen, nor more com- mon, nor more justifiable, than maternal jealousy, yet she could not bring herself to suppose that the little, humble, grateful, gentle governess, would dare to look up to such a magnificent personage as the collec- tor of Boggley Wollah. The petition, too, for an extension of the young lady’s leave of absence had already been dispatched, and it would be difficult to find a pretext for ab- ruptly dismissing her. And as if all things conspired in favor of the gentle Rebecca, the very elements (al- though she was not inclined at first to ac- knowledge their action in her behalf) inter- posed to aid her. For on the evening ap- pointed for the Vauxhall party, George Os- borne having come to dinner, and the elders of the house having departed, according to invitation, to dine with Alderman Balls, at Highbury Barn, there came on such a thun- der-storm as only happens on Vauxhall nights, and as obliged the young people, per- force, to remain athome. Mr. Osborne did not seem in the least disappointed at this oc- currence. He and Joseph Sedley drank a fitting quantity of port-wine, téte-d-léte, in the dining-room, during the drinking of which Sedley told a number of his best In- dian stories; for he was extremely talkative in man’s society, and afterward Miss Ame- lia Sedley did the honors of the drawing- room; and these four young persons passed had a right to be vain. I don’t say no. But|such a comfortable evening together, that [’ve no patience with Jos and his dandified | they declared they were rather glad of the modesty. It is out-Josephing Joseph, my dear, and all the while the boy is only think- ing of himself, and what a fine fellow he is. I doubt, Ma’am, we shall have some trouble thunder-storm than otherwise, which had caused them to put off their visit to Vaux- hall. | Osborne was Sedley’s godson, and had a“ COMICA@OO (Cc SS (CO)