blic house.
To a shrill voice and a complaining disposition she added a dismal sort
of piety which showed itself in much going to meeting, in considering
her husband a lost and sinful wretch and in the entertaining of a
prim-faced, red-nosed, rusty old hypocrite of a preacher who sat by her
fireside every evening consuming quantities of toast and pineapple rum,
and groaning at the depravity of her husband, who declined to give money
to the preacher's society for sending flannel waistcoats and colored
handkerchiefs to the infant negroes of the West Indies. As may be
imagined, Sam's father led a sorry life at home.

The meeting with the elder Weller proved a fortunate one, for when Sam
told of their experiences with Jingle and Job Trotter, his father
declared that he himself had driven the pair to the town of Ipswich,
where they were then living. Nothing would satisfy Mr. Pickwick, when he
heard this, but pursuit, and he and Sam set out next morning by coach,
Mr. Pickwick having written to the other Pickwickians to follow him.

On the coach was a red-haired man with an inquisitive nose and blue
spectacles, whose name was Mr. Peter Magnus, and with whom (since they
stopped at the same inn) Mr. Pickwick dined on his arrival. Mr. Magnus,
before they parted for the night, grew confidential and informed him
that he had come there to propose to a lady who was in the inn at that
very moment.

For some time after he retired, Mr. Pickwick sat in his bedroom
thinking. At length he rose to undress, when he remembered he had left
his watch down stairs, and taking a candle he went to get it. He found
it easily, but to retrace his steps proved more difficult. A dozen doors
he thought his own, and a dozen times he turned a door-knob only to
hear a gruff voice within. At last he found what he thought was his own
room, the door ajar. The wind had blown out his candle, but the fire was
bright, and Mr. Pickwick, as he retired behind the bed curtains to
undress, smiled till he almost cracked his nightcap strings as he
thought of his wanderings.

Suddenly the smile faded--some one had entered the room and locked the
door. "Robbers!" thought Mr. Pickwick. He peered out between the
curtains and almost fainted with horror. Standing before the mirror was
a middle-aged lady in yellow curl papers, brushing her back-hair.

"Bless my soul!" thought Mr. Pickwick. "I must be in the wrong room.
This is fearful!"

He waited a while, then coughed,