hot that you looks like a aggrawated glass-blower. Wot's the matter?'

'Aha!' replied the old gentleman, 'I began to be afeerd that you'd gone
for a walk round the Regency Park, Sammy.'

'Come,' said Sam, 'none o' them taunts agin the wictim o' avarice, and
come off that 'ere step. Wot arc you a-settin' down there for? I don't
live there.'

'I've got such a game for you, Sammy,' said the elder Mr. Weller,
rising.

'Stop a minit,' said Sam, 'you're all vite behind.'

'That's right, Sammy, rub it off,' said Mr. Weller, as his son dusted
him. 'It might look personal here, if a man walked about with vitevash
on his clothes, eh, Sammy?'

As Mr. Weller exhibited in this place unequivocal symptoms of an
approaching fit of chuckling, Sam interposed to stop it.

'Keep quiet, do,' said Sam, 'there never vos such a old picter-card
born. Wot are you bustin' vith, now?'

'Sammy,' said Mr. Weller, wiping his forehead, 'I'm afeerd that vun o'
these days I shall laugh myself into a appleplexy, my boy.'

'Vell, then, wot do you do it for?' said Sam. 'Now, then, wot have you
got to say?'

'Who do you think's come here with me, Samivel?' said Mr. Weller,
drawing back a pace or two, pursing up his mouth, and extending his
eyebrows. 'Pell?' said Sam.

Mr. Weller shook his head, and his red cheeks expanded with the laughter
that was endeavouring to find a vent.

'Mottled-faced man, p'raps?' asked Sam.

Again Mr. Weller shook his head.

'Who then?'asked Sam.

'Your mother-in-law,' said Mr. Weller; and it was lucky he did say it,
or his cheeks must inevitably have cracked, from their most unnatural
distension.

'Your mother--in--law, Sammy,' said Mr. Weller, 'and the red-nosed man,
my boy; and the red-nosed man. Ho! ho! ho!'

With this, Mr. Weller launched into convulsions of laughter, while
Sam regarded him with a broad grin gradually over-spreading his whole
countenance.

'They've come to have a little serious talk with you, Samivel,' said
Mr. Weller, wiping his eyes. 'Don't let out nothin' about the unnat'ral
creditor, Sammy.'

'Wot, don't they know who it is?' inquired Sam.

'Not a bit on it,' replied his father.

'Vere are they?' said Sam, reciprocating all the old gentleman's grins.

'In the snuggery,' rejoined Mr. Weller. 'Catch the red-nosed man a-goin'
anyvere but vere the liquors is; not he, Samivel, not he. Ve'd a wery
pleasant ride along the road from the Markis this mornin', Sammy,' said
Mr. Weller,