THE PICKWICK CLUB. 417
" It wasn't Mr. Muzzle, was it ? " inquired Mary.
" Oh no," replied Sam, with a solemn shake of the head, " it warn't him."
" It must haye been the cook," said Mary.
" O' course it must," said Sam.
»* Well, I never heard the like of that!" exclaimed Mary.
" No more did I," said Sam. " But Mary, my dear — " here Sam's manner grew extremely affectionate — " Mary my dear, I've got another a£Pair in hand as is wery pressin'. There's one o' my governor's friends —Mr. Winkle — you remember him."
" Him in the green coat? " said Mary. " Oh yes, I remember him."
- ' Well," said Sam, " he's in a horrid state o* love; reg'larly corn-
foozled, and done over vith it."
" Lor ! " interposed Mary.
" Yes," said Sam ; " but that's nothin' if we could only find out the young 'ooman " — and here Sam, with many digressions upon the per- sonal beauty of Mary, and the unspeakable tortures he had experienced since he last saw her, gave a faithful account of Mr. Winkle's present predicament.
" Well I " said Mary, « I never did ! "
" O* course not," said Sam, " and nobody never did, nor never vill neither ; and here am I a walkin' about like the wanderin' Jew — a sportin' character you have perhaps heerd on Mary ray dear, as wos alvays doin' a match agin' time, and never vent to sleep — looking arter this here Miss Arabella Allen."
" Miss who?" said Mary, in great astonishment.
•* Miss Arabella Allen," said Sam.
" Goodness gracious !" said Mary, pointing to the garden-door which the sulky groom had locked after him. ^' Why it's that very house; she's been living there these six weeks. Their upper housemaid, which ie lady's maid too, told me all about it over the wash-house palin's before the family was out of bed, one mornin'."
- ' Wot, the wery next door to you?" said Sam.
" The very next," replied Mary.
Mr. Weller was so deeply overcome at receiving this intelligence that he found it absolutely necessary to cling to his fair informant for sup- port, and divers little love passages had passed between them, before he was sufficiently collected to return to the subject.
" Veil," said Sam at length, " if this don't beat cock-fightin', nothin' never vill, as the Lord Mayor said ven the chief secretary o' state pro- posed his missis's health arter dinner. That wery next house I Wy, I've got a message to her as I've been a tryin' all day to deliver."
" Ah," said Mary, '< but you can't deliver it now, because she only walks in the garden in the evening, and then only for a very little time ; •he never goes out, without the old lady."
Sam ruminated for a few moments, and finally hit upon the following- plan of operations ; that he should return just at dusk — the time at which Arabella invariably took her walk — and being admitted by Mary into the garden of the house to which she belonged, contrive to scramble
