ate for the poor lady, and ought to have
caused him some remorse. No doubt he explained the incident, which he
had better have done at first, for _now_ it had the air of attempting to
shield the lady. It was odd that Mr. Pickwick should thus have
interfered with the marriage of _two_ elderly spinster ladies.

There is, by the way, a droll inconsistency on the part of the author in
his description of a scene between Mr. Magnus and Mr. Pickwick. When the
former was about to propose to the middle-aged lady, he told Mr. Pickwick
that he arranged to see her at eleven. "It only wants a quarter now."
Breakfast was waiting, and the pair sat down to it. Mr. Magnus was
looking at the clock every other second. Presently he announced, "It
only wants _two minutes_." Notwithstanding this feverish impatience, he
asks Mr. Pickwick for his advice in proposing, which the latter gave at
great length. Mr. Magnus listened, now without any impatience. The
clock hand was "verging on the five minutes past;" not until it was _ten_
minutes past did he rise.

IV.--Had Mr. Pickwick ever Loved?

Mr. Pickwick's early history is obscure enough, and we know no details
save that he had been "in business." But had he ever an affair of the
heart? Just as in real life, when a stray allusion will occasionally
escape from a person betraying something of his past history, so once or
twice a casual remark of Mr. Pickwick's furnishes a hint. Thus Mr.
Magnus, pressing him for his advice in this delicate matter of proposing,
asked him had he ever done this sort of thing in his time. "You mean
proposing?" said the great man. "Yes." "Never," said Mr. Pickwick,
_with great energy_, and then repeated the word "Never." His friend then
assumed that he did not know how it was best to begin. "Why," said the
other, cautiously, "I may have formed some ideas on the subject," but
then added that he had "never submitted them to the test of experience."
This is distinct enough, but it does all the same hint at some _affaire
de coeur_, else why would he "have formed some ideas upon the subject."
Of course, it may be that he was thinking of Mrs. Bardell and her cruel
charges. Still, it was strange that a man should have reached to fifty,
have grown round and stout, without ever offering his hand. The first
picture in the book, however, helps us to speculate a little. Over his
head in the room at Dulwich hangs the portrait of an old lady in
spectacles