I
only vish you'd write me out the receipt, that's all.'

'Hush!' said Sam, 'she's at home, old feller.' 'She ain't vithin
hearin',' replied Mr. Weller; 'she always goes and blows up, downstairs,
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.

'Anybody been here, Sammy?' asked Mr. Weller, senior, dryly, after a
long silence.

Sam nodded an expressive assent.

'Red-nosed chap?' inquired Mr. Weller.

Sam nodded again.

'Amiable man that 'ere, Sammy,' said Mr. Weller, smoking violently.

'Seems so,' observed Sam.

'Good hand at accounts,' said Mr. Weller. 'Is he?' said Sam.

'Borrows eighteenpence on Monday, and comes on Tuesday for a shillin' to
make it up half-a-crown; calls again on Vensday for another half-crown
to make it five shillin's; and goes on, doubling, till he gets it up to
a five pund note in no time, like them sums in the 'rithmetic book 'bout
the nails in the horse's shoes, Sammy.'

Sam intimated by a nod that he recollected the problem alluded to by his
parent.

'So you vouldn't subscribe to the flannel veskits?' said Sam, after
another interval of smoking.

'Cert'nly not,' replied Mr. Weller; 'what's the good o' flannel veskits
to the young niggers abroad? But I'll tell you what it is, Sammy,' said
Mr. Weller, lowering his voice, and bending across the fireplace; 'I'd
come down wery handsome towards strait veskits for some people at home.'

As Mr. Weller said this, he slowly recovered his former position, and
winked at his first-born, in a profound manner.

'It cert'nly seems a queer start to send out pocket-'ankerchers to
people as don't know the use on 'em,' observed Sam.

'They're alvays a-doin' some gammon of that sort, Sammy,' replied his
father. 'T'other Sunday I wos walkin' up the road, wen who should I see,
a-standin' at a chapel door, with a blue soup-plate in her hand, but
your mother-in-law! I werily believe there was change for a couple o'
suv'rins in it, then, Sammy, all in ha'pence; and as the people come
out, they rattled the pennies in it, till you'd ha' thought that no
mortal plate as ever was baked, could ha' stood the wear