'
'You're very right, Sir,' interposed Ben Allen, just awake
enough to know that he had spent his thousand pounds without
the smallest difficulty. 'You're an intelligent man. Bob, he's a
very knowing fellow this.'
'I am very happy to find that you do me the justice to make the
admission, sir,' said Mr. Winkle, senior, looking contemptuously
at Ben Allen, who was shaking his head profoundly. 'The fact is,
Mr. Pickwick, that when I gave my son a roving license for a
year or so, to see something of men and manners (which he has
done under your auspices), so that he might not enter life a mere
boarding-school milk-sop to be gulled by everybody, I never
bargained for this. He knows that very well, so if I withdraw my
countenance from him on this account, he has no call to be
surprised. He shall hear from me, Mr. Pickwick. Good-night, sir.
--Margaret, open the door.'
All this time, Bob Sawyer had been nudging Mr. Ben Allen to
say something on the right side; Ben accordingly now burst,
without the slightest preliminary notice, into a brief but
impassioned piece of eloquence.
'Sir,' said Mr. Ben Allen, staring at the old gentleman, out of a
pair of very dim and languid eyes, and working his right arm
vehemently up and down, 'you--you ought to be ashamed of
yourself.
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