“He’s a queer customer, the vun-eyed vun, sir,” observed Mr. Weller, as he led the way. “He’s a-gammonin’ that ’ere landlord, he is, sir, till he don’t rightly know wether he’s a-standing on the soles of his boots or the crown of his hat.”

The individual to whom this observation referred, was sitting at the upper end of the room when Mr. Pickwick entered, and was smoking a large Dutch pipe, with his eye intently fixed on the round face of the landlord; a jolly-looking old personage, to whom he had recently been relating some tale of wonder, as was testified by sundry disjointed exclamations of, “Well, I wouldn’t have believed it! The strangest thing I ever heard! Couldn’t have supposed it possible!” and other expressions of astonishment which burst spontaneously from his lips, as he returned the fixed gaze of the one-eyed man.