“O’ course it can’t,” asserted Sam: “I know’d that, afore I came.”

“Why, they’ll eat him up alive, Sammy,” exclaimed Mr. Weller.

Sam nodded his concurrence in the opinion.

“He goes in rayther raw, Sammy,” said Mr. Weller metaphorically, “and he’ll come out, done so ex-ceedin’ brown, that his most formiliar friends won’t know him. Roast pigeon’s nothin’ to it, Sammy.”

Again Sam Weller nodded.

“It oughtn’t to be, Samivel,” said Mr. Weller gravely.

“It mustn’t be,” said Sam.