Chapter 45 - Page 2

a-callin' me to the
bar, they couldn't make more noise about it!'

Accompanying these words with a gentle rap on the head of the young
gentleman before noticed, who, unconscious of his close vicinity to
the person in request, was screaming 'Weller!' with all his might,
Sam hastened across the ground, and ran up the steps into the hall.
Here, the first object that met his eyes was his beloved father sitting
on a bottom stair, with his hat in his hand, shouting out 'Weller!' in
his very loudest tone, at half-minute intervals.

'Wot are you a-roarin' at?' said Sam impetuously, when the old
gentleman had discharged himself of another shout; 'making
yourself so precious hot that you looks like a aggrawated glass-
blower. Wot's the matter?'

'Aha!' replied the old gentleman, 'I began to be afeerd that
you'd gone for a walk round the Regency Park, Sammy.'

'Come,' said Sam, 'none o' them taunts agin the wictim o'
avarice, and come off that 'ere step. Wot arc you a-settin' down
there for? I don't live there.'

'I've got such a game for you, Sammy,' said the elder Mr.
Weller, rising.

'Stop a minit,' said Sam, 'you're all vite behind.'

'That's right, Sammy, rub it off,' said Mr. Weller, as his son
dusted him. 'It might look personal here, if a man walked about
with vitevash on his clothes, eh, Sammy?'

As Mr. Weller exhibited in this place unequivocal symptoms
of an approaching fit of chuckling, Sam interposed to stop it.

'Keep quiet, do,' said Sam, 'there never vos such a old picter-
card born. Wot are you bustin' vith, now?'

'Sammy,' said Mr. Weller, wiping his forehead, 'I'm afeerd
that vun o' these days I shall laugh myself into a appleplexy, my boy.'

'Vell, then, wot do you do it for?' said Sam. 'Now, then, wot
have you got to say?'

'Who do you think's come here with me, Samivel?' said Mr.
Weller, drawing back a pace or two, pursing up his mouth, and
extending his eyebrows.
'Pell?' said Sam.

Mr. Weller shook his head, and his red cheeks expanded with
the laughter that was endeavouring to find a vent.

'Mottled-faced man, p'raps?' asked Sam.

Again Mr. Weller shook his head.

'Who then?'asked Sam.

'Your mother-in-law,' said Mr. Weller; and it was lucky he did
say it, or his cheeks must inevitably have cracked, from their
most unnatural distension.

'Your mother--in--law, Sammy,' said Mr. Weller, 'and the
red-nosed man, my boy; and the red-nosed man. Ho! ho! ho!'

With this, Mr. Weller launched into convulsions of laughter,
while Sam regarded him with a broad grin gradually over-
spreading his whole countenance.

'They've come to have a little serious talk with you, Samivel,'