Mr. Pickwick was on the point of replying to the question, and
reciting Mr. Benjamin Allen's name and honourable distinctions
at full length, when the sprightly Mr. Bob Sawyer, with a view of
rousing his friend to a sense of his situation, inflicted a startling
pinch upon the fleshly part of his arm, which caused him to jump
up with a shriek. Suddenly aware that he was in the presence of
a stranger, Mr. Ben Allen advanced and, shaking Mr. Winkle
most affectionately by both hands for about five minutes,
murmured, in some half-intelligible fragments of sentences, the
great delight he felt in seeing him, and a hospitable inquiry
whether he felt disposed to take anything after his walk, or
would prefer waiting 'till dinner-time;' which done, he sat down
and gazed about him with a petrified stare, as if he had not the
remotest idea where he was, which indeed he had not.
All this was most embarrassing to Mr. Pickwick, the more
especially as Mr. Winkle, senior, evinced palpable astonishment
at the eccentric--not to say extraordinary--behaviour of his two
companions. To bring the matter to an issue at once, he drew a
letter from his pocket, and presenting it to Mr.
Pages:
1250
1251
1252
1253
1254
1255
1256
1257
1258
1259
1260
1261
1262
1263
1264
1265
1266
1267
1268
1269
1270
1271
1272
1273
1274