As Wardle had
business to transact in the city, they sent the carriage and the fat
boy to his hotel, with the information that he and Mr. Pickwick
would return together to dinner at five o'clock.
Charged with this message, the fat boy returned, slumbering as
peaceably in his dickey, over the stones, as if it had been a down
bed on watch springs. By some extraordinary miracle he awoke
of his own accord, when the coach stopped, and giving himself
a good shake to stir up his faculties, went upstairs to execute
his commission.
Now, whether the shake had jumbled the fat boy's faculties
together, instead of arranging them in proper order, or had
roused such a quantity of new ideas within him as to render him
oblivious of ordinary forms and ceremonies, or (which is also
possible) had proved unsuccessful in preventing his falling asleep
as he ascended the stairs, it is an undoubted fact that he walked
into the sitting-room without previously knocking at the door;
and so beheld a gentleman with his arms clasping his young
mistress's waist, sitting very lovingly by her side on a sofa, while
Arabella and her pretty handmaid feigned to be absorbed in
looking out of a window at the other end of the room.
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