e walks agin with
his powdered head and pigtail, and rolls down the Strand with the chain
hangin' out furder than ever, and the great round watch almost bustin'
through his gray kersey smalls. There warn't a pickpocket in all London
as didn't take a pull at that chain, but the chain 'ud never break, and
the watch 'ud never come out, so they soon got tired of dragging such a
heavy old gen'l'm'n along the pavement, and he'd go home and laugh till
the pigtail wibrated like the penderlum of a Dutch clock. At last, one
day the old gen'l'm'n was a-rollin' along, and he sees a pickpocket as
he know'd by sight, a-coming up, arm in arm with a little boy with a
wery large head. "Here's a game," says the old gen'l'm'n to himself,
"they're a-goin' to have another try, but it won't do!" So he begins
a-chucklin' wery hearty, wen, all of a sudden, the little boy leaves
hold of the pickpocket's arm, and rushes head foremost straight into the
old gen'l'm'n's stomach, and for a moment doubles him right up with
the pain. "Murder!" says the old gen'l'm'n. "All right, Sir," says the
pickpocket, a-wisperin' in his ear. And wen he come straight agin,
the watch and chain was gone, and what's worse than that, the old
gen'l'm'n's digestion was all wrong ever afterwards, to the wery last
day of his life; so just you look about you, young feller, and take care
you don't get too fat.'

As Mr. Weller concluded this moral tale, with which the fat boy appeared
much affected, they all three repaired to the large kitchen, in which
the family were by this time assembled, according to annual custom
on Christmas Eve, observed by old Wardle's forefathers from time
immemorial.

From the centre of the ceiling of this kitchen, old Wardle had just
suspended, with his own hands, a huge branch of mistletoe, and this same
branch of mistletoe instantaneously gave rise to a scene of general and
most delightful struggling and confusion; in the midst of which, Mr.
Pickwick, with a gallantry that would have done honour to a descendant
of Lady Tollimglower herself, took the old lady by the hand, led her
beneath the mystic branch, and saluted her in all courtesy and decorum.
The old lady submitted to this piece of practical politeness with all
the dignity which befitted so important and serious a solemnity, but
the younger ladies, not being so thoroughly imbued with a superstitious
veneration for the custom, or imagining that the value of a salute is
very much enhanced