Pickwick Abroad: or, The Tour in France — page 190: what you’re looking at

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

Pickwick Abroad. b45 a thought—and in the luxury of the moment he wept in concert with his affectionate companion Winkle. An adjournment, on the part of the gentlemen, to the coffee-room, and on that of the donkey to the stable, then took place; and while the last-named individual partook of a modicum of hay and a drink of water for his supper, Mr. Pickwick, on the other hand, related his adventures to his wondering friends, and listened in return to the short account which Mr. Tupman had to give him relative to a dis- agreeable upset which the hackney-coach and its occupiers experienced in the midst of a muddy road, the alarm that had been felt on account of Mr. Pickwick’s unaccountable absence, and the particulars of an eventually safe arrival at the Hotel Meurice. These interesting details being mutually disposed of, the several gentlemen retired to their beds, and doubtless enjoyed the luxuries of the sweet 1epose that shortly there overtook them. CHAPTER XIX. THIS IS A SHORT CHAPTER, [IN WHICH CERTAIN PARTICULARS RELATIVE TO MR. ADOLPHUS CRASHEM ARE SUCCINCTLY DETAILED AxouT a week after the important date of the no less important oc- currences related in the preceding chapter, two letters were placed in Mr. Pickwick’s hands, as he one morning emanated from his bed- room in the eternal black gaiters and a coeval good humour. As the handwriting of both was perfectly unknown to his experienced eye, he did not open the epistles forthwith, but prudently turned them back- wards and forwards in his hands, and surveyed with peculiar sharpness the fashion of the folds. As an instance of experimental philosophy —being an essay as to the practicability of reading the interior through the medzum of an outward inspection—the attempt was indeed a curious one; but as an ordinary and every-day pursuit, it might doubtless have met with many dissentient voices and much disappro bation. Be that as it may—for we must remind the reader of the fact that Mr. Pickwick was no common individual—the letters were eventually opened and perused; and these were the contents of the first. “¢ Sir, ‘‘ Your respected letter arrived at a hand-gallop a day or two ago, and I accordingly despatch you a reply, which I hope will reach you at something better than a canter. Mr. Crashem trotted into my debt so pleasantly and quietly that he did not turn a hair, nor I a shilling. It was about the time that my head-ostler was hanged for horse-stealing, that the bill commenced; and when my second wife ran away from me, I opened my eyes to the tremendous pace at which he was going. The elopement of my youngest daughter, Hyacintha, with Theophilus-Lucius Grubem, the dogs-meat man, scarcely affected L ECORNICLOO© CS (C(O)