‘I shall never wonder, and, with your good leave, never know,’ said I, smiling in my turn. ‘It is enough for me that you give me this gratification. I have not the least desire that you should tell me by what means I have obtained it.’
‘You are very kind,’ returned Mr. Pickwick, shaking me by the hand again; ‘you are so exactly what I expected! But for what particular purpose do you think I have sought you, my dear sir? Now what do you think I have come for?’
Mr. Pickwick put this question as though he were persuaded that it was morally impossible that I could by any means divine the deep purpose of his visit, and that it must be hidden from all human ken. Therefore, although I was rejoiced to think that I had anticipated his drift, I feigned to be quite ignorant of it, and after a brief consideration shook my head despairingly.
‘What should you say,’ said Mr. Pickwick, laying the forefinger of his left hand upon my coat-sleeve, and looking at me with his head thrown back, and a little on one side,—‘what should you say if I confessed that after reading your account of yourself and your little society, I had come here, a humble candidate for one of those empty chairs?’
‘I should say,’ I returned, ‘that I know of only one circumstance which could still further endear that little society to me, and that would be the associating with it my old friend,—for you must let me call you so,—my old friend, Mr. Pickwick.’
As I made him this answer every feature of Mr. Pickwick’s face fused itself into one all-pervading expression of delight. After shaking me heartily by both hands at once, he patted me gently on the back, and then—I well understood why—coloured up to the eyes, and hoped with great earnestness of manner that he had not hurt me.
If he had, I would have been content that he should have repeated the offence a hundred times rather than suppose so; but as he had not, I had no difficulty in changing the subject by making an inquiry which had been upon my lips twenty times already.
‘You have not told me,’ said I, ‘anything about Sam Weller.’
‘O! Sam,’ replied Mr. Pickwick, ‘is the same as ever. The same true, faithful fellow that he ever was. What should I tell you about Sam, my dear sir, except that he is more indispensable to my happiness and comfort every day of my life?’
‘And Mr. Weller senior?’ said I.