Illustrative of the convivial sentiment, that the best of friends must sometimes part T HE PAVEMENT of Snow Hill had been baking and frying all day in the heat, and the twain Saracens' heads guarding the entrance to the hostelry of whose name and sign they are the duplicate presentments, looked--or seemed, in the eyes of jaded and footsore passers-by, to look--more vicious than usual, after blistering and scorching in the sun, when, in one of the inn's smallest sitting-rooms, through whose open window there rose, in a palpable steam, wholesome exhalations from reeking coach-horses, the usual furniture of a tea-table was displayed in neat and inviting order, flanked by large joints of roast and boiled, a tongue, a pigeon pie, a cold fowl, a tankard of ale, and other little matters of the like kind, which, in degenerate towns and cities, are generally understood to belong more particularly to solid lunches, stage-coach dinners, or unusually substantial breakfasts.
Mr John Browdie, with his hands in his pockets, hovered restlessly about these delicacies, stopping occasionally to whisk the flies out of the sugar-basin with his wife's pocket-handkerchief, or to dip a teaspoon in the milk-pot and carry it to his mouth, or to cut off a little knob of crust, and a little corner of meat, and swallow them at two gulps like a couple of pills.
After every one of these flirtations with the eatables, he pulled out his watch, and declared with an earnestness quite pathetic that he couldn't undertake to hold out two minutes longer.
`Tilly!' said John to his lady, who was reclining half awake and half asleep upon a sofa.
`Well, John!'
`Well, John!' retorted her husband, impatiently. `Dost thou feel hoongry, lass?'
`Not very,' said Mrs Browdie.
`Not vary!' repeated John, raising his eyes to the ceiling. `Hear her say not vary, and us dining at three, and loonching off pasthry thot aggravates a mon 'stead of pacifying him! Not vary!'
`Here's a gen'l'man for you, sir,' said the waiter, looking in.
`A wa'at for me?' cried John, as though he thought it must be a letter, or a parcel.
`A gen'l'man, sir.'
`Stars and garthers, chap!' said John, `wa'at dost thou coom and say thot for? In wi' 'un.'
`Are you at home, sir?'
`At whoam!' cried John, `I wish I wur; I'd ha tea'd two hour ago. Why, I told t'oother chap to look sharp ootside door, and tell 'un d'rectly he coom, thot we war faint wi' hoonger. In wi' 'un. Aha! Thee hond, Misther Nickleby. This is nigh to be the proodest day o' my life, sir. Hoo be all wi'ye? Ding! But, I'm glod o' this!'
Quite forgetting even his hunger in the heartiness of his salutation, John Browdie shook Nicholas by the hand again and again, slapping his palm with great violence between each shake, to add warmth to the reception.
`Ah! there she be,' said John, observing the look which Nicholas directed towards his wife. `There she be--we shan't quarrel about her noo--eh? Ecod, when I think o' thot--but thou want'st soom' at to eat. Fall to, mun, fall to, and for wa'at we're aboot to receive--'
No doubt the grace was properly finished, but nothing more was heard, for John had already begun to play such a knife and fork, that his speech was, for the time, gone.
`I shall take the usual licence, Mr Browdie,' said Nicholas, as he placed a chair for the bride.
`Tak' whatever thou like'st,' said John, `and when a's gane, ca' for more.'
Without stopping to explain, Nicholas kissed the blushing Mrs Browdie, and handed her to her seat.
`I say,' said John, rather astounded for the moment, `mak' theeself quite at whoam, will 'ee?'
`You may depend upon that,' replied Nicholas; `on one condition.'
`And wa'at may thot be?' asked John.
`That you make me a godfather the very first time you have occasion for one.'
`Eh! d'ye hear thot?' cried John, laying down his knife and fork. `Agodfeyther! Ha! ha! ha! Tilly--hear till 'un--a godfeyther! Divn't say a word more, ye'll never beat thot. Occasion for 'un--a godfeyther! Ha!
ha! ha!'
Never was man so tickled with a respectable old joke, as John Browdie was with this. He chuckled, roared, half suffocated himself by laughing large pieces of beef into his windpipe, roared again, persisted in eating at the same time, got red in the face and black in the forehead, coughed, cried, got better, went off again laughing inwardly, got worse, choked, had his back thumped, stamped about, frightened his wife, and at last recovered in a state of the last exhaustion and with the water streaming from his eyes, but still faintly ejaculating, `A godfeyther--a godfeyther, Tilly!'
in a tone bespeaking an exquisite relish of the sally, which no suffering could diminish.
`You remember the night of our first tea-drinking?' said Nicholas.
`Shall I e'er forget it, mun?' replied John Browdie.
`He was a desperate fellow that night though, was he not, Mrs Browdie?'
said Nicholas. `Quite a monster!'
`If you had only heard him as we were going home, Mr Nickleby, you'd have said so indeed,' returned the bride. `I never was so frightened in all my life.'
`Coom, coom,' said John, with a broad grin; `thou know'st betther than thot, Tilly.'
`So I was,' replied Mrs Browdie. `I almost made up my mind never to speak to you again.'
`A'most!' said John, with a broader grin than the last. `A'most made up her mind! And she wur coaxin', and coaxin', and wheedlin', and wheedlin'
a' the blessed wa'. "Wa'at didst thou let yon chap mak' oop tiv'ee for?"says I. "I deedn't, John," says she, a squeedgin my arm. "You deedn't?"says I. "Noa," says she, a squeedgin of me agean.'
`Lor, John!' interposed his pretty wife, colouring very much. `How can you talk such nonsense? As if I should have dreamt of such a thing!'
