ve touch, by which Mr. Hopkins, instead of Mr. Gunter, in the pink
shirt, was represented as one of the two interlocutors in the famous
quarrel-scene: the other being Mr. Noddy, the scorbutic youth, with the
nice sense of honour. Through this modification the ludicrous effect of
the squabble was wonderfully enhanced, as where Mr. Noddy, having been
threatened with being "pitched out o' window" by Mr. Jack Hopkins,
said to the latter, "I should like to see you do it, sir," Jack Hopkins
curtly retaliating--"You shall _feel_ me do it, sir, in half a minute."
The reconciliation of the two attained its climax of absurdity in
the Reading, when Mr. Noddy, having gradually allowed his feelings to
overpower him, professed that he had ever entertained a devoted personal
attachment to Mr. Hopkins. Consequent upon this, Mr. Hopkins, we were
told, replied, that, "on the whole, he rather preferred Mr. Noddy to
his own _mother_"--the word standing, of course, as "brother" in the
original. Summing it all up, the Reader would then add, with a rise and
fall of the voice at almost every other word in the sentence, the mere
sound of which was inexpressibly ludicrous--"Everybody said the whole
dispute had been conducted in a manner" (here he would sometimes gag)
"that did equal credit to the head and heart of both parties concerned."

Another gag, of which there is no sign in the marked copy, those who
attended any later delivery of this Reading will well remember he was
fond of introducing. This was immediately after Mrs. Raddle had put an
end to the evening's enjoyment in the very middle of Jack Hopkins' song
(with a chorus) of "The King, God bless him," carolled forth by Jack
to a novel air compounded of the "Bay of Biscay" and "A Frog he would
a-wooing go"--when poor, discomfited Bob (after turning pale at the
voice of his dreaded landlady, shrilly calling out, "Mr. Saw-yer! Mr.
Saw-yer!") turned reproachfully on the over-boisterous Jack Hopkins,
with, "I _thought_ you were making too much noise, Jack. You're such
a fellow for chorusing! You're always at it. You came into the world
chorusing; and I believe you'll go out of it chorusing." Through their
appreciation of which--more even than through their remembrance of
Mrs. Raddle's withdrawal of her nightcap, with a scream, from over the
staircase banisters, on catching sight of Mr. Pickwick, saying, "Get
along with you, you old wretch! Old enough to be his grandfather, you
willin! You're