There now, Mr. Pickwick, if you can make it
convenient to reduce your eyes to their usual size again, and
to let me hear what you think we ought to do, I shall feel rather
obliged to you!'
The testy manner in which the hearty old gentleman uttered
this last sentence was not wholly unwarranted; for Mr. Pickwick's
face had settled down into an expression of blank amazement
and perplexity, quite curious to behold.
'Snodgrass!-since last Christmas!' were the first broken
words that issued from the lips of the confounded gentleman.
'Since last Christmas,' replied Wardle; 'that's plain enough,
and very bad spectacles we must have worn, not to have discovered
it before.'
'I don't understand it,' said Mr. Pickwick, ruminating; 'I
cannot really understand it.'
'It's easy enough to understand it,' replied the choleric old
gentleman. 'If you had been a younger man, you would have
been in the secret long ago; and besides,' added Wardle, after a
moment's hesitation, 'the truth is, that, knowing nothing of this
matter, I have rather pressed Emily for four or five months past,
to receive favourably (if she could; I would never attempt to
force a girl's inclinations) the addresses of a young gentleman
down in our neighbourhood.
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