Samuel Weller

“ Weller. ‘More widders is married than single wimin.’
‘Very good, very good,’ said Pell, ‘you’re quite right, Mr. Weller. Mrs. Pell was a very elegant and accomplished woman; her manners were the theme of universal admiration in our neighbourhood. I was proud to see that woman dance; there was something so firm and dignified, and yet natural, in her motion. Her cutting, gentlemen, was simplicity itself. Ah! well, well! Excuse my asking the question, Mr. Samuel,’ continued the attorney in a lower voice, ‘was your mother-in-law tall?’
‘Not wery,’ replied Sam. ”

“ Sam Weller’s peculiar trick of speech has been traced with probability to Samuel Vale, a popular comic actor, who in 1822 performed Simon Spatterdash in a farce called ‘The Boarding House,’ and gave currency to a similar phraseology (Notes and Queries, 6th ser. V. 388; and Origin of Sam Weller, with a facsimile of a contemporary piratical imitation of ‘Pickwick,’ 1883) . ”

“ Weller burst into tears.
‘Wot’s gone wrong, mum?’ said Sam.
‘Oh, Samuel!’ replied Mrs. Weller, ‘your father makes me wretched. Will nothing do him good?’
‘Do you hear this here?’ said Sam. ‘Lady vants to know vether nothin’ ‘ull do you good.’
‘Wery much indebted to Mrs. Weller for her po-lite inquiries, Sammy,’ replied the old gentleman. ‘I think a pipe vould benefit me a good deal. Could I be accommodated, Sammy?’
Here Mrs. Weller let fall some more tears, and Mr. Stiggins groaned.
‘Hollo! Here’s this unfortunate gen’l’m’n took ill agin,’ said Sam, looking round. ”

“ The man in blue being a light-haired, stiff-necked, free and easy sort of footman, with a swaggering air and pert face, had attracted Mr. Weller’s especial attention at first, but when he began to come out in this way, Sam felt more than ever disposed to cultivate his acquaintance; so he launched himself into the conversation at once, with characteristic independence.
“Your health, sir,” said Sam. “I like you conwersation much. I think it’s wery pretty.” ”

“ I do not, for reasons to be hereafter stated, think the Pickwick Papers comparable to the later books; but, apart from the new vein of humor it opened, its wonderful freshness and its unflagging animal spirits, it has two characters that will probably continue to attract to it an unfading popularity. Its pre-eminent achievement is of course Sam Weller,—one of those people that take their place among the supreme successes of fiction, as one that nobody ever saw but everybody recognizes, at once perfectly natural and intensely original. Who is there that has ever thought him tedious? ”

“ Consider what you owe to society, and don’t let yourself be injured by too much work. For the sake o’ your feller creeturs, keep yourself as quiet as you can; only think what a loss you would be!” With these pathetic words, Sam Weller departed.
[117]
“A very singular young man that,” said the powdered-headed footman, looking after Mr. Weller, with a countenance which clearly showed he could make nothing of him. ”

“ Weller.
‘Never mind who he was,’ retorted Sam; ‘he warn’t a coachman; that’s enough for you.’
I know’d a ostler o’ that name,’ said Mr. Weller, musing.
‘It warn’t him,’ said Sam. ‘This here gen’l’m’n was a prophet.’
‘Wot’s a prophet?’ inquired Mr. Weller, looking sternly on his son.
‘Wy, a man as tells what’s a-goin’ to happen,’ replied Sam.
‘I wish I’d know’d him, Sammy,’ said Mr. Weller. ‘P’raps he might ha’ throw’d a small light on that ‘ere liver complaint as we wos a-speakin’ on, just now. Hows’ever, if he’s dead, and ain’t left the bisness to nobody, there’s an end on it. ”

“ Sam was so very busy with his own thoughts, that it is probable he would have taken no more notice of the young woman than just raising his head and remarking that she had a very neat and pretty figure, if his feelings of gallantry had not been most strongly roused by observing that she had no one to help her, and that the carpets seemed too heavy for her single strength. Mr. Weller was a gentleman of great gallantry in his own way, and he no sooner remarked this circumstance than he hastily rose from the large stone, and advanced towards her. ”

“ Sam had dutifully seen his father to the Belle Sauvage, when, on returning, he encountered the fat boy in the court, who had been charged with the delivery of a note from Emily Wardle.
“I say,” said Joe, who was unusually loquacious, “what a pretty girl Mary is, isn’t she? I am so fond of her, I am!”
Mr. Weller made no verbal remark in reply; but eyeing the fat boy for a moment, quite transfixed at his presumption, led him by the collar to the corner, and dismissed him with a harmless but ceremonious kick. ”

“ Weller; “she always goes and blows up, down-stairs, for a couple of hours arter tea; so we’ll just give ourselves a damp, Sammy.”
Saying this, Mr. Weller mixed two glasses of spirits and water, and produced a couple of pipes. The father and son sitting down opposite each other: Sam on one side of the fire, in the high-backed chair, and Mr. Weller senior on the other, in an easy ditto: they proceeded to enjoy themselves with all due gravity. ”

“ The particular picture on which Sam Weller’s eyes were fixed, as he said this, was a highly–coloured representation of a couple of human hearts skewered together with an arrow, cooking before a cheerful fire, while a male and female cannibal in modern attire, the gentleman being clad in a blue coat and white trousers, and the lady in a deep red pelisse with a parasol of the same, were approaching the meal with hungry eyes, up a serpentine gravel path leading thereunto. A decidedly indelicate young gentleman, in a pair of wings and nothing else, was depicted as superintending the cooking ”

“ It is a common remark, confirmed by history and experience, that great men rise with the circumstances in which they are placed. Mr. Weller came out so strong in his capacity of chairman, that Sam was for some time prevented from speaking by a grin of surprise, which held his faculties enchained, and at last subsided in a long whistle of a single note. ”

“ These reflections were too much for the good old man. He raised Sam’s tumbler to his lips and drank off its contents.
“Wot’s the matter now?” said Sam.
“Nev’r mind, Sammy,” replied Mr. Weller, “it’ll be a wery agonizin’ trial to me at my time of life, but I’m pretty tough, that’s vun consolation, as the wery old turkey remarked ven the farmer said he wos afeerd he should be obliged to kill him for the London market.”
“Wot’ll be a trial?” inquired Sam.
“To see you married, Sammy—to see you a dilluded wictim, and thinkin’ in your innocence that it’s all wery capital,” replied Mr. Weller. ”

“ Nothing could have been more in accordance with Sam Weller’s feelings than the projected exposure of the real propensities and qualities of the red–nosed man; and it being very near the appointed hour of meeting, the father and son took their way at once to Brick Lane, Sam not forgetting to drop his letter into a general post–office as they walked along.
The monthly meetings of the Brick Lane Branch of the United Grand Junction Ebenezer Temperance Association were held in a large room, pleasantly and airily situated at the top of a safe and commodious ladder. ”

“ Mr. Weller made no reply, but once more shook his head most learnedly.
“Leave off rattlin’ that ’ere nob o’ yourn, if you don’t want it to come off the springs altogether,” said Sam, impatiently, “and behave reasonable. I vent all the vay down to the Markis o’ Granby, arter you, last night.”
“Did you see the Marchioness o’ Granby, Sammy?” inquired Mr. Weller, with a sigh.
“Yes, I did,” replied Sam.
“How wos the dear creetur a lookin’?”
“Wery queer,” said Sam. “I think she’s a injurin’ herself gradivally vith too much o’ that ’ere pine-apple rum, and other strong medicines o’ the same natur.” ”

“ Weller, looking sternly round, with the poker in his hand.
“Vy not!” exclaimed Sam. “’Cos it must be proved, and probated, and swore to, and all manner o’ formalities.”
“You don’t mean that?” said Mr. Weller, laying down the poker.
Sam buttoned the will carefully in a side pocket; intimating by a look meanwhile, that he did mean it, and very seriously too.
“Then I’ll tell you wot it is,” said Mr. Weller, after a short meditation, “this is a case for that ’ere confidential pal o’ the Chancellorship’s. Pell must look into this, Sammy. ”

“ Give Weller’s Theories for the extraction of Mr. Pickwick from the Fleet. Where was his wife’s will found?
18. How did the old lady make a memorandum, and of what, at whist? Show that there were at least three times as many fiddles as harps in Muggleton at the time of the ball at Manor Farm.
19. What is a red-faced Nixon?
20. Write down the chorus to each verse of Mr. S. Weller’s song, and a sketch of the mottle-faced man’s excursus on it. Is there any ground for conjecturing that he (Sam) had more brothers than one? ”

“ Weller, ‘Now I s’pose he’ll want to call some witnesses to speak to his character, or p’rhaps to prove a alleybi. I’ve been a-turnin’ the bis’ness over in my mind, and he may make his-self easy, Sammy. I’ve got some friends as’ll do either for him, but my adwice ‘ud be this here—never mind the character, and stick to the alleybi. Nothing like a alleybi, Sammy, nothing.’ Mr. Weller looked very profound as he delivered this legal opinion; and burying his nose in his tumbler, winked over the top thereof, at his astonished son.
‘Why, what do you mean?’ said Sam ”

“ Weller sat back in his chair, with his eyes wide open, his hands planted on his knees, and his whole countenance expressive of absorbing and overwhelming astonishment. Sam sat opposite him in perfect silence, waiting, with eager curiosity, for the termination of the scene.
Mr. Stiggins kept the brown pocket-handkerchief before his eyes for some minutes, moaning decently meanwhile, and then, mastering his feelings by a strong effort, put it in his pocket and buttoned it up. After this he stirred the fire; after that, he rubbed his hands and looked at Sam. ”

“ But mind this here, my boy, nobody but Pell—nobody but Pell as a legal adwiser.”
“I don’t want anybody else,” replied Sam. “Now are you a-comin’?”
“Vait a minute, Sammy,” replied Mr. Weller, who, having tied his shawl with the aid of a small glass that hung in the window, was now, by dint of the most wonderful exertions, struggling into his upper garments. “Vait a minit, Sammy; ven you grow as old as your father, you von’t get into your veskit quite as easy as you do now, my boy.”
“If I couldn’t get into it easier than that, I’m blessed if I’d vear vun at all,” rejoined his son. ”

“ Go on, Sammy.’
‘“Lovely creetur,”’ repeated Sam.
‘‘Tain’t in poetry, is it?’ interposed his father.
‘No, no,’ replied Sam.
‘Wery glad to hear it,’ said Mr. Weller. ‘Poetry’s unnat’ral; no man ever talked poetry ‘cept a beadle on boxin’–day, or Warren’s blackin’, or Rowland’s oil, or some of them low fellows; never you let yourself down to talk poetry, my boy. Begin agin, Sammy.’
Mr. Weller resumed his pipe with critical solemnity, and Sam once more commenced, and read as follows:
‘“Lovely creetur I feel myself a damned—”’ ‘That ain’t proper,’ said Mr. Weller, taking his pipe from his mouth. ”

“ He’s flat broke and hungry.”
“I thought perhaps he wouldn’t like to meet Mr. Havens,” Jimmie commented, with a wink at Carl.
“And why not?” asked Ben, somewhat amazed.
Then the story of Sam Weller’s previous employment at the hangar on Long Island came out. The boys all declared that they wanted to be present when Sam met his former employer!
100“I don’t care what you say about Sam!” Jimmie declared, after the boys had finished their discussion of the Long Island incident. “I like him just the same! There’s a kind of a free and easy impudence about him that gets me. I hope he’ll stay with us!” ”

“ In 1774 he went to Congress, but for a long period afterward the Old State House was again his field of labor, as senator, as lieutenant governor and then as governor.
The life of Samuel Adams ought to be more familiar than it is to the patriotic young men of to-day, but some excuse is found in the fact that a popular, concise biography has, until lately, not been written. The excellent three volume work of Mr. Wells, Adams' great grandson, although admirable as an exhaustive biography, is too voluminous for the common reader ”

“ Weller; “only I [61] wouldn’t show that wery fine edge too much, if I was you, in case anybody took it off. What do you mean by comin’ to a hot-el and asking arter Sam, vith as much politeness as a vild Indian?”
“‘Cos an old gen’l’m’n told me to,” replied the boy.
“What old gen’l’m’n?” inquired Sam, with deep disdain.
“Him as drives a Ipswich coach, and uses our parlour,” rejoined the boy. “He told me yesterday mornin’ to come to the George and Wultur this arternoon, and ask for Sam.”
“It’s my father, my dear,” said Mr. Weller, turning with an explanatory air to the young lady in the bar ”

“ The fat youth gave a semi-cannibalic leer at Mr. Weller, as he thought of the roast legs and gravy.
“Oh, you’ve woke up, at last, have you?” said Sam.
The fat boy nodded.
“I’ll tell you what it is, young boa-constructer,” said Mr. Weller, impressively; “if you don’t sleep a little less, and exercise a little more, ven you come to be a man you’ll lay yourself open to the same sort of personal inconwenience as was inflicted on the old gen’l’m’n as wore the pigtail.” ”

“ There was no pretending to mistake where the voice came from now, so the stranger, having no other resource, at last looked Sam Weller full in the face.
“It won’t do, Job Trotter,” said Sam. “Come! none o’ that ’ere nonsense. You ain’t so wery ’andsome that you can afford to throw avay many o’ your good looks. ”