as I thought they was! It's the wonderfullest ewent that ever happened. Bring a feather, somebody, and knock me down with it!"
"What do you mean!" exclaimed old Martin, quite as much excited by the spectacle of Mark's excitement, as that strange person was himself. "Neighbours where!"
"Here, sir!" replied Mr. Tapley. "Here in the city of London! Here upon these very stones! Here they are, sir! Don't I know 'em! Lord love their welcome faces, don't I know 'em!"
With which ejaculations Mr. Tapley not only pointed to a decent-looking man and woman standing by, but commenced embracing them alternately, over and over again, in Monument Yard.
"Neighbours, where!" old Martin shouted: almost maddened by his ineffectual efforts to get out at the coach-door.
"Neighbours in America! Neighbours in Eden!" cried Mark. "Neighbours in the swamp, neighbours in the bush, neighbours in the fever. Didn't she nurse us! Didn't he help us! Shouldn't we both have died without 'em! Hav'n't they come a strugglin' back, without a single child for their consolation! And talk to me of neighbours!"
Away he went again, in a perfectly wild state, hugging them, and skipping round them, and cutting in between them, as if he were performing some frantic and outlandish dance.
Mr. Chuzzlewit no sooner gathered who these people were, than he burst open the coach-door somehow or other, and came tumbling out among them; and as if the lunacy of Mr. Tapley were contagious, he immediately began to shake hands too, and exhibit every demonstration of the liveliest joy.
"Get up behind!" he said. "Get up in the rumble. Come along with me! Go you on the box, Mark. Home! Home!"
"Home!" cried Mr. Tapley, seizing the old man's hand in a burst of enthusiasm. "Exactly my opinion, Sir. Home, for ever! Excuse the liberty, Sir, I can't help it. Success to the Jolly Tapley! There's nothin' in the house they sha'n't have for the askin' for, except a bill. Home to be sure! Hurrah!"
Home they rolled accordingly, when he had got the old man in again, as fast as they could go; Mark abating nothing of his fervor by the way, but allowing it to vent itself as unrestrainedly as if he had been on Salisbury Plain.
And now the wedding party began to assemble at Todgers's. Mr. Jinkins, the only boarder invited, was on the ground first. He wore a white favor in his button-hole, and a bran new extra super double-milled blue saxony dress coat (that was its description in the bill), with a variety of tortuous embellishments about the pockets, invented by the artist to do honour to the day. The miserable Augustus no longer felt strongly even on the subject of Jinkins. He hadn't strength of mind enough to do it. "Let him come!" he had said, in answer to Miss Pecksniff, when she urged the point. " Let him come! He has ever been my rock ahead through life. 'Tis meet he should be there. Ha, ha! Oh, yes! let Jinkins come!"
Jinkins had come, with all the pleasure in life; and there he was. For some few minutes he had no companion but the breakfast, which
