tours he encircled the buxom figure of Mrs. Bardell—all of course in his own paternal and privileged way.

It should be borne in mind also that Mr. Pickwick was almost invariably drawn into his more serious scrapes and embarrassments by this devotion to the sex. The night in the boarding school garden—the affair with the spinster lady—his interview with Arabella from the top of the wall—his devotion to Mrs. Pott and Mrs. Dowler—and much more that we do not hear of, show that he was a gallant elderly gentleman. Oh, he was a “sly dog, he was.”

There is a curious burst of Mr. Pickwick’s which seems to hint at a sort of tender appreciation on his side. When the notice of trial was sent to him, in his first vehemence, he broke out that Mrs. Bardell had nothing p. 9to do with the business, “She hadn’t the heart to do it.” Mr. Pickwick could not speak with this certainty, unless he knew the lady’s feelings pretty well. Why hadn’t she the heart to do it? Because she was sincerely attached to him and his interests and was “a dear creature.” This, however, was a fond delusion of the worthy gentleman’s. Persons of her class are not quite so disinterested as they appear to be, especially if they have to interpret the various paternal and comforting advances made to them by their well to do lodgers.

p. 9

There is another factor which can hardly be left out, when considering Mr. Pickwick’s responsibility—that is, his too frequent indulgence in liquor, and the insufficiency of his head to stand its influence. Now this was a very important day for him, the first time he was to set up a man servant. He had to break it to his landlady, who would naturally resent the change. He may have been priming himself with some of those perpetual glasses of brandy and water to which he was addicted, and who knows but that, in his ardour to propitiate, he may have gone a little too far? This fact too, of the introducing a man servant into her establishment, Mrs. Bardell may have indistinctly associated with a general change in his life. If she were to become Mrs. Pickwick her duties might be naturally expected to devolve on a male assistant.

Next morning he and his friends quitted London on their travels to Eatanswill in pursuit of adventure. He airily dismissed the matter. We may wonder whether he made any remonstrance to his landlady before his departure. Probably he did not, fancying that she had been merely in a slight fit of the “tantrums.”

At Bury, however, after the boarding-school adventure, he 

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