“Well,” said Mr. Weller, “there’s somethin’ in that; and I wish your mother-in-law ’ud only conduct her conwersation on the same gen-teel principle. Ain’t you a goin’ to sign it?”
“That’s the difficulty,” said Sam; “I don’t know what to sign it.”
“Sign it, Veller,” said the oldest surviving proprietor of that name.
“Won’t do,” said Sam. “Never sign a walentine with your own name.”
“Sign it ‘Pickvick,’ then,” said Mr. Weller; “it’s a wery good name and an easy one to spell.”
“The wery thing,” said Sam. “I could end with a werse; what do you think?”
“I don’t like it, Sam,” rejoined Mr. Weller. “I never know’d a respectable coachman as wrote poetry, ’cept one, as made an affectin’ copy o’ werses the night afore he wos hung for a highway robbery; and he wos only a Cambervell man, so even that’s no rule.”
But Sam was not to be dissuaded from the poetical idea that had occurred to him, so he signed the letter,
“Your love-sick
Pickwick.”