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"The glory of Charles Dickens," it has been said, "will always be in his Pickwick, his first, his best, his inimitable triumph."* *Fred Harrison. Just when Dickens began to write Pickwick he married, and soon we find him comfortably settled in a London house, while the other great writers of his day gathered round him as his friends.
Pickwick as the aggressor, he set up an appalling and semi-earthly kind of howling, and butting forward with his head, commenced assailing that immortal gentleman about the back and legs, with such blows and pinches as the strength of his arm, and the violence of his excitement, allowed. 'Take this little villain away, said the agonised Mr. Pickwick, 'he's mad.
"Yes, you'll hear his voice in a moment, Mr. Pickwick. He'll speak to me." Particular awe and reverence could not be better expressed. It is curious how accurate the young fellow was in all his details. He describes the ball as beginning at "precisely twenty minutes before eight o'clock;" and according to the old rules it had to begin as soon after seven as possible.
"I imagine not, sir I imagine not," said Mr. Pickwick, in a very peremptory tone. Mr. Tupman had contemplated a laugh, but he found it was a serious matter, so he looked grave, and said they were a pretty pattern. How natural is all this! And still more so his leader's reply.
There's Samkin and Green's managing-clerk, and Smithers and Price's chancery, and Pimkin and Thomas's out o' doors sings a capital song, he does and Jack Bamber, and ever so many more. You're come out of the country, I suppose. Would you like to join us? Mr. Pickwick could not resist so tempting an opportunity of studying human nature.
'I observed it once before, when I was in this town. You may depend upon me. Mr. Trotter made another bow, and turned to depart, when Mr. Pickwick thrust a guinea into his hand. 'You're a fine fellow, said Mr. Pickwick, 'and I admire your goodness of heart. No thanks. Remember eleven o'clock. 'There is no fear of my forgetting it, sir, replied Job Trotter.
Bob Sawyer gracefully struck his colours, and having put them in his pocket, nodded in a courteous manner to Mr. Pickwick, wiped the mouth of the case-bottle, and applied it to his own, thereby informing him, without any unnecessary waste of words, that he devoted that draught to wishing him all manner of happiness and prosperity.
As well might I be content to gaze on Goswell Street for ever, without one effort to penetrate to the hidden countries which on every side surround it. And having given vent to this beautiful reflection, Mr. Pickwick proceeded to put himself into his clothes, and his clothes into his portmanteau.
Weller, emerging from a sequestered spot, where he had been engaged in discussing a bottle of Madeira, which he had abstracted from the breakfast-table an hour or two before. 'Here's your servant, Sir. Proud o' the title, as the living skellinton said, ven they show'd him. 'Follow me instantly, said Mr. Pickwick. 'Tupman, if I stay at Bury, you can join me there, when I write.
'Ah! said the old lady, 'there was just such a wind, and just such a fall of snow, a good many years back, I recollect just five years before your poor father died. It was a Christmas Eve, too; and I remember that on that very night he told us the story about the goblins that carried away old Gabriel Grub. 'The story about what? said Mr. Pickwick. 'Oh, nothing, nothing, replied Wardle.
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