d, _if
better feelings he has_: or that the charms and accomplishments of my
client prevailed against his unmanly intentions." We may note the
reserve which suggested a struggle going on in Mr. Pickwick. And how
persuasive is Buzfuz's _exegesis_! Then, on the letters:

"These letters bespeak the character of the man. They are not open,
fervid, eloquent epistles breathing nothing but the language of
affectionate attachment. They are _covert_, _sly_, under-hand
communications, but, fortunately, far more conclusive than if couched in
the most glowing language. _Letters that must be viewed with a cautious
and supicious eye_: _letters that were evidently intended at the time_,
_by Pickwick_, _to mislead and delude any third parties into whose hands
they might fall_." The gravity and persuasiveness of all this is really
_impayable_. "Let me read the first: 'Garraway's, twelve o'clock. Dear
Mrs. B., Chops and tomato sauce. Yours, Pickwick.' Gentlemen, what does
this mean? Chops and tomato sauce. Yours, Pickwick. Chops! Gracious
Heavens!--and tomato sauce! Gentlemen, is the happiness of a sensitive
and confiding female _to be trifled_ away by such artifices as these?
_The next has no date_ _whatever which is in itself suspicious_: 'Dear
Mrs. B., I shall not be at home until to-morrow. Slow coach.' And then
follows the very remarkable expression, 'Don't trouble yourself about the
warming pan.'"

There is a little bit of serious history connected with these letters
which I was the first I think to discover. They were intended to
satirise the trivial scraps brought forward in Mrs. Norton's matrimonial
case--Norton _v._ Lord Melbourne. My late friend, "Charles Dickens the
younger," as he used to call himself, in his notes on _Pickwick_, puts
aside this theory altogether as a mere unfounded fancy; but it will be
seen there cannot be a doubt in the matter. Sir W. Follett laid just as
much stress on these scraps as Serjeant Buzfuz did on his: he even used
the phrase, "it seems there may be latent love like latent heat, in these
productions." We have also, "Yours Melbourne," like "Yours Pickwick,"
the latter signing as though he were a Peer. "There is another of these
notes," went on Sir William, "How are you?" "Again there is no beginning
you see." "The next has no date, which is in itself suspicious," Buzfuz
would have added. Another ran--"I will call about half past four,
Yours." "_These_ are the only not