Chapter 52

CHAPTER LII
INVOLVING A SERIOUS CHANGE IN THE WELLER FAMILY,
AND THE UNTIMELY DOWNFALL OF Mr. STIGGINS

Considering it a matter of delicacy to abstain from introducing
either Bob Sawyer or Ben Allen to the young couple, until they
were fully prepared to expect them, and wishing to spare
Arabella's feelings as much as possible, Mr. Pickwick
proposed that he and Sam should alight in the neighbourhood of the
George and Vulture, and that the two young men should for
the present take up their quarters elsewhere. To this they very
readily agreed, and the proposition was accordingly acted
upon; Mr. Ben Allen and Mr. Bob Sawyer betaking themselves
to a sequestered pot-shop on the remotest confines of the
Borough, behind the bar door of which their names had in
other days very often appeared at the head of long and complex
calculations worked in white chalk.

'Dear me, Mr. Weller,' said the pretty housemaid, meeting
Sam at the door.

'Dear ME I vish it vos, my dear,' replied Sam, dropping
behind, to let his master get out of hearing. 'Wot a sweet-
lookin' creetur you are, Mary!'

'Lot, Mr. Weller, what nonsense you do talk!' said Mary.
'Oh! don't, Mr. Weller."

'Don't what, my dear?' said Sam.

'Why, that,' replied the pretty housemaid. 'Lor, do get along
with you.' Thus admonishing him, the pretty housemaid pushed
Sam against the wall, declaring that he had tumbled her cap,
and put her hair quite out of curl.

'And prevented what I was going to say, besides,' added Mary.
'There's a letter been waiting here for you four days; you hadn't
gone away, half an hour, when it came; and more than that, it's
got "immediate," on the outside.'

'Vere is it, my love?' inquired Sam.

'I took care of it, for you, or I dare say it would have been
lost long before this,' replied Mary. 'There, take it; it's more
than you deserve.'

With these words, after many pretty little coquettish doubts
and fears, and wishes that she might not have lost it, Mary
produced the letter from behind the nicest little muslin tucker
possible, and handed it to Sam, who thereupon kissed it with
much gallantry and devotion.

'My goodness me!' said Mary, adjusting the tucker, and
feigning unconsciousness, 'you seem to have grown very fond of
it all at once.'

To this Mr. Weller only replied by a wink, the intense meaning
of which no description could convey the faintest idea of; and,
sitting himself down beside Mary on a window-seat, opened the
letter and glanced at the contents.

'Hollo!' exclaimed Sam, 'wot's all this?'

'Nothing the matter, I hope?' said Mary, peeping over his
shoulder.

'Bless them eyes o' yourn!' said Sam, looking