Pickwick Abroad: A Companion to the Pickwick Papers — page 260: what you’re looking at

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

28 flog Figs violently, of course ; but Cuff, who had come to himself by this time, and was washing his wounds, stood up and said, * It’s my fault, sir—not Figs’—not Dobbin’s. I was bullying a little boy; and he served me right.””. By which magnanimous speech he not only saved his conquerer a whipping, but got back all his ascendency over the boys, which his defeat had nearly cost him. Y oung Osborne wrote home to his parents an account of the transaction. ‘‘ Sugarcane House, Richmond, March, 18—. ‘* Dear Mamma,—lI hope you are quite well. I should be much obliged to you to send me a cake and five shillings. There has been a fight here between Cuff & Dob- bin. Cuff, you know, was the Cock of the School. They fought thirteen rounds, and Dobbin Licked. So Cuff is now Only Sec- ond Cock. The fight was about me. Cuff was licking me for breaking a bottle of milk, and Figs wouldn’t stand it. We call him Figs because his father is a Grocer—F igs & Rudge, Thames St., City—I think as he fought for me you ought to buy your Tea & Sugar at his father’s. Cuff goes home every Saturday, but can’t this, because he has 2 Black Eyes. He has a white Pony to come and fetch him, and a groom in livery onabay mare. I wish my Papa would let me have a Pony, and I am, ‘ Your dutiful Son, ‘*GEORGE SEDLEY OSBORNE. “P.S. Give my love to little Emmy. I am cutting her out a Coach in cardboard.” In consequence of Dobbin’s victory, his character rose prodigiously in the estimation of all his schoolfellows, and the name of Figs, which had been a byword of reproach became as respectable and popular a nick- name as any other in use in the school. ‘¢ After all, it’s not his fault that his father’s a srocer,”’ George Osborne said, who, though a little chap, had a very high popularity among the Swishtail youth ; and his opinion was received with great applause. It was voted low to sneer at Dobbin about this ac- cident of birth. ‘Old Figs’? grew to be a name of kindness and endearment; and the sneak of an usher jeered at him no longer. And Dobbin’s spirit rose with his altered circumstances. He made wonderful ad- vances in scholastic learning. ‘The superb Cuff himself, at whose condescension Dob- bin could only blush and wonder, helped him on with his Latin verses; ‘*‘ coached” him in play-hours; carried him triumphantly out of the little-boy class into the middle- sized form; and even there got a fair place for him. It was discovered, that although dull at classical Jearning, at mathematics he was uncommonly guick. ‘To the content- ment of all, he passed third in algebra, and got a French prize-book at the public mid- VANITY FAIR. summer examination. You should have seen his mother’s face when Telemaque (that delicious romance) was presented to him by the Doctor in the face of the whole school and the parents and company, with an inscription to Gulielmo Dobbin. All the boys clapped hands in token of applause and sympathy. His blushes, his stumbles, his awkwardness, and the number of feet which he crushed as he went back to his place, who shall describe or calculate? Old Dob- bin, his father, who now respected him for the first time, gave him two guineas public- ly; most of which he spent in a general tuck-out for the school: and he came back in a tail-coat after the holidays. Dobbin was much too modest a young fel- low ta suppose that this happy change in all his circumstances arose from his own gen- erous and manly disposition: he chose, from some perverseness, to attribute his good for- tune to the sole agency and benevolence of little George Osborne, to whom, henceforth, he vowed such a Jove and affection as is only felt by children—such an affection, as we read in the charming fairy-book, uncouth Orson had for splendid young Valentine, his conquerer. He flung himself down at little Osborne’s feet, and loved him. Even be- fore they were acquainted, he had admired Osborne in secret. Now he was his valet, his dog, his man Friday. He believed Os- borne to be the possessor of every perfec- tion, to be the handsomest, the bravest, the most active, the cleverest, the most gener- ous of created boys. He shared his money with him: bought him uncountable presents of knives, pencil-cases, gold seals, toffee, Little Warblers, and romantic books, with large, colored pictures of knights and rob- bers, in many of which latter you might read inscriptions to George Sedley Osborne, Esq., from his attached friend, William Dobbin— the which tokens of homage George re- ceived very graciously, as became his supe- rior merit. So that, when Lieutenant Osborne, com-" ing to Russell-square on the day of the Vauxhall party, said to the ladies, ‘ Mrs. Sedley, Ma’am, I hope you have room; I’ve asked Dobbin of ours to come and dine here, and go with us to Vauxhall. He’s almost as modest as Jos.” ‘‘ Modesty! pooh,” said the stout gentle- man, casting a vainqueur look at Miss Sharp. ‘‘ He is—but you are incomparably more graceful, Sedley,” Osborne added, laughing. ‘¢T met him at the Bedford, when I went to look for you; and I told him Miss Amelia was come home, and that we were all bent on going out for a night’s pleasuring; and that Mrs. Sedley had forgiven his breaking the punch-bow] at the child’s party. Don’t you remember the catastrophe, Ma’am, sev- en years ago?” CONNIE AOC SHAE