“Bless my soul,” said Mr. Pickwick, “this is very puzzling.”
“Beggin’ your pardon, sir,” said Sam, touching his forelock, “it’s a distinction without a difference—as the pork pieman remarked when they asked him if his pork wasn’t kittens.”
“Then,” said Mr. Pickwick, with a benevolent twinkle, “by all means let us go to The Eclipse.”
“Beg pardon, sir,” said Sam again, doubtfully, “there ain’t no astrongomies in it, is there?” Sam had not forgotten his adventure with the scientific gentleman at Clifton. But, as nobody knew, they set off for the Garrick Theatre, and were soon ensconced in a box.
They found the stage occupied by a waiter, who was the very image of the waiter Mr. Pickwick had seen at the Old Royal Hotel at Birmingham, except that he didn’t imperceptibly melt away. Waiters, in general, never walk or run; they have a peculiar and mysterious power of skimming out of rooms which other mortals possess not. But this waiter, unlike his kind, couldn’t “get off” anyhow. He explained that it was because the composer had given him no music to “get off” with.
“Poor fellow,” said Mr. Pickwick, greatly distressed; “will he have to stop there all night?”
“Not,” muttered Sam to himself, “if I wos behind ’im with a bradawl.”
However, the waiter did at last get off, and then came on again and sang another verse, amid loud hoorays, until Mr. Pickwick’s eyes were wet with gratification at the universal jollity.
“Fine fellow, fine fellow,” cried Mr. Pickwick; “what is his name?”
“Hush-h-h, my dear sir,” whispered a charming young man of not much more than fifty in the next box, in whom Mr. Pickwick, abashed, recognized Mr. Angelo Cyrus Bantam, “that is Mr. Alfred Lester.”