Could he be the object of it?
Could it be for him that the fair Arabella had looked scornfully
on the sprightly Bob Sawyer, or had he a successful rival? He
determined to see her, cost what it might; but here an insurmountable
objection presented itself, for whether the explanatory
'over that way,' and 'down there,' of Mr. Ben Allen, meant three
miles off, or thirty, or three hundred, he could in no wise guess.
But he had no opportunity of pondering over his love just then,
for Bob Sawyer's return was the immediate precursor of the
arrival of a meat-pie from the baker's, of which that gentleman
insisted on his staying to partake. The cloth was laid by an
occasional charwoman, who officiated in the capacity of Mr. Bob
Sawyer's housekeeper; and a third knife and fork having been
borrowed from the mother of the boy in the gray livery (for
Mr. Sawyer's domestic arrangements were as yet conducted on
a limited scale), they sat down to dinner; the beer being served
up, as Mr. Sawyer remarked, 'in its native pewter.'
After dinner, Mr. Bob Sawyer ordered in the largest mortar in
the shop, and proceeded to brew a reeking jorum of rum-punch
therein, stirring up and amalgamating the materials with a pestle
in a very creditable and apothecary-like manner.
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