“I shall be delighted, my boy,” said Wardle. “Joe⁠—damn that boy, he’s gone to sleep.”

“No, I ain’t, sir,” replied the fat boy, starting up from a remote corner, where, like the patron saint of fat boys⁠—the immortal Horner⁠—he had been devouring a Christmas pie, though not with the coolness and deliberation which characterised that young gentleman’s proceedings.

“Fill Mr. Pickwick’s glass.”

“Yes, sir.”

The fat boy filled Mr. Pickwick’s glass, and then retired behind his master’s chair, from whence he watched the play of the knives and forks, and the progress of the choice morsels from the dishes to the mouths of the company, with a kind of dark and gloomy joy that was most impressive.