forgot Tupman, and agreed to run away with the deceiver to
London.

There was great excitement when their absence was discovered, and the
wrathful Mr. Wardle and Mr. Pickwick pursued them at once in a
four-horse chaise. They rode all night and, reaching London, at once
began to inquire at various inns to find a trace of the runaway pair.

They came at length to one called The White Hart, in whose courtyard a
round-faced man-servant was cleaning boots. This servant, whose name was
Sam Weller, wore a coat with blue glass buttons, a bright red
handkerchief tied around his neck and an old white hat stuck on the side
of his head. He spoke with a quaint country accent, but he was a witty
fellow, with a clever answer for every one.

"Werry well, I'm agreeable," he said when Mr. Pickwick gave him a gold
piece. "What the devil do you want with me, as the man said when he see
the ghost?"

With Sam Weller's aid, they soon found that Jingle and the spinster were
there, and entered the room in which the couple sat at the very moment
Jingle was showing the marriage license which he had just brought. The
spinster at once went into violent hysterics, and Jingle, seeing the
game was up, accepted the sum of money which Mr. Wardle offered him to
take himself off.

There were deep lamentations when the confiding spinster found herself
deserted by the faithless Jingle, and slowly and sadly Mr. Pickwick and
Mr. Wardle bore her back to Dingley Dell.

The heartbroken Tupman had already left there, and with feelings of
gloom Mr. Pickwick, with Snodgrass and Winkle, also departed.

III

MR. PICKWICK HAS AN INTERESTING SCENE WITH
MRS. BARDELL, HIS HOUSEKEEPER. FURTHER
PURSUIT OF JINGLE LEADS TO AN
ADVENTURE AT A YOUNG LADIES'
BOARDING-SCHOOL

Mr. Pickwick lived in lodgings, let for a single gentleman, in the house
of a Mrs. Bardell, a widow with one little boy. For a long time she had
secretly adored her benevolent lodger, as some one far above her own
humble station.

Mr. Pickwick had not forgotten Sam Weller, the servant who had aided in
the pursuit of Jingle, and on returning to London he wrote, asking Sam
to come to see him, intending to offer him a position as body-servant.
Sam came promptly and Mr. Pickwick then proceeded to tell his landlady
of his plan--a more or less delicate matter, since it would cause some
change in her household affairs.

"Mrs. Bardell," said he, "