“I have not been, but I shall be very happy to be, Arabella,” replied her brother gravely. Here Mr. Allen bowed grimly to Mr. Winkle, while Mr. Winkle and Mr. Bob Sawyer glanced mutual distrust out of the corners of their eyes.
The arrival of the two new visitors, and the consequent check upon Mr. Winkle and the young lady with the fur round her boots, would in all probability have proved a very unpleasant interruption to the hilarity of the party, had not the cheerfulness of Mr. Pickwick, and the good humour of the host, been exerted to the very utmost for the common weal. Mr. Winkle gradually insinuated himself into the good graces of Mr. Benjamin Allen, and even joined in a friendly conversation with Mr. Bob Sawyer; who, enlivened with the brandy, and the breakfast, and the talking, gradually ripened into a state of extreme facetiousness, and related with much glee an agreeable anecdote, about the removal of a tumour on some gentleman’s head, which he illustrated by means of an oyster-knife and a half-quartern loaf, to the great edification of the assembled company. Then the whole train went to church, where Mr. Benjamin Allen fell fast asleep; while Mr. Bob Sawyer abstracted his thoughts from worldly matters, by the ingenious process of carving his name on the seat of the pew, in corpulent letters of about four inches long.
“Now,” said Wardle, after a substantial lunch, with the agreeable items of strong-beer and cherry-brandy, had been done ample justice to; “what say you to an hour on the ice? We shall have plenty of time.”
“You skait, of course, Winkle?” said Wardle.
“Ye—yes; oh, yes;” replied Mr. Winkle. “I—I—am _rather_ out of practice.”
“Oh, _do_ skait, Mr. Winkle,” said Arabella. “I like to see it _so_ much.”
“Oh, it is _so_ graceful,” said another young lady.
A third young lady said it was elegant, and a fourth expressed her opinion that it was “swanlike.”
“I should be very happy, I’m sure,” said Mr. Winkle, reddening; “but I have no skaits.”
This objection was at once overruled. Trundle had got a couple of pair, and the fat boy announced that there were half a dozen more, down stairs, whereat Mr. Winkle expressed exquisite delight, and looked exquisitely uncomfortable.