"How are you safer there than anyveres else?" interrupted Sam.
"'Cos a coachman's a privileged indiwidual," replied Mr. Weller, looking fixedly at his son. "'Cos a coachman may do vithout suspicion wot other men may not; 'cos a coachman may be on the wery amicablest terms with eighty mile o' females, and yet nobody think that he ever means to marry any vun among 'em. And wot other man can say the same, Sammy?"
"Vell, there's somethin' in that," said Sam.
"If your gov'ner had been a coachman," reasoned Mr. Weller, "do you s'pose as that 'ere jury 'ud ever ha' conwicted him, s'posin' it possible as the matter could ha' gone to that extremity? They dustn't ha' done it."
"Wy not?" said Sam, rather disparagingly.
"Wy not!" rejoined Mr. Weller; "'cos it 'ud ha' gone agin their consciences. A reg'lar coachman's a sort o' connectin' link betwixt singleness and matrimony, and every practicable man knows it."
"Wot! You mean, they're gen'ral fav'rites, and nobody takes adwantage on 'em, p'raps?" said Sam.
His father nodded.
"How it ever come to that 'ere pass," resumed the parent Weller, "I can't say. Wy it is that long-stage coachmen possess such insiniwations, and is alvays looked up to--adored I may say--by ev'ry young 'ooman in ev'ry town he vurks through, I don't know. I only know that so it is. It's a reg'lation of natur-- a dispensary, as your poor mother-in-law used to say."
"A dispensation," said Sam, correcting the old gentleman.
"Wery good, Samivel, a dispensation, if you like it better," returned Mr. Weller; "I call it a dispensary, and it's alvays writ up so, at the places vere they gives you physic for nothin' in your own bottles; that's all."
With these words, Mr. Weller re-filled and re-lighted his pipe, and once more summoning up a meditative expression of countenance, continued as follows:
"Therefore, my boy, as I do not see the adwisability o' stoppin' here to be marrid vether I vant to or not, and as at the same time I do not vish to separate myself from them interestin' members o' society altogether, I have come to the determination o' drivin' the Safety, and puttin' up vunce more at the Bell Savage, vich is my nat'ral-born element, Sammy."
"And wot's to become o' the bis'ness?" inquired Sam.
"The bis'ness, Samivel," replied the old gentleman, "goodvill, stock, and fixters, vill be sold by private contract; and out o' the money, two hundred pound, agreeable to a rekvest o' your mother-in-law's to me a little afore she died, vill be inwested in your name in--wot do you call them things agin?"
"Wot things?" inquired Sam.
"Them things as is always a goin' up and down, in the City."
"Omnibuses?" suggested Sam.
"Nonsense," replied Mr. Weller. "Them things as is alvays a fluctooatin', and gettin' theirselves inwolved somehow or another vith the national debt, and the checquers bills, and all that."
"Oh! the funds," said Sam.