As light as fairies, if not altogether as brisk as bees, did the four Pickwickian shades assemble on a winter morning in the year of grace, 1896. Christmas was nigh at hand, in all its _fin-de-siècle_ inwardness; it was the season of pictorial too-previousness and artistic anticipation, of plethoric periodicals, all shocker-sensationalism sandwiched with startling advertisements; of cynical new-humour and flamboyantly sentimental chromo-lithography. But we are so taken up by the genial delights of the New Christmas that we are keeping Mr. Pickwick and his phantom friends waiting in the cold on the chilly outside of the Muggleton Motor-car, which they had just mounted, well wrapped up in antiquated great coats, shawls, and comforters. Mr. Weller, Senior, had, all unconsciously, brought his well-loved whip with him, and was greatly embarrassed thereby. "Votever shall I do vith it, Sammy?" he whispered, hoarsely. "Purtend it's a new, patent, jointless fishing-rod, guv'nor," rejoined Sam, in a Stygian aside. "Nobody 'ere'll 'ave the slightest notion vot it really is." "When are they--eh--going to--ahem--put the horses to?" murmured Mr. Pickwick, emerging from his coat collar, and looking about him with great perplexity. "'_Osses?_" cried the coachman, turning round upon Mr. Pickwick, with sharp suspicion in his eye. "'_Osses?_ d'ye say. Oh, who are you a-gettin' at?" Mr. Pickwick withdrew promptly into his coat-collar. The irrepressible Sam came immediately to the aid of his beloved master, whom he would never see snubbed if _he_ knew it. "There's vheels vithin vheels, as the bicyclist said vhen he vos pitched head foremost into the vatchmaker's vinder," remarked Mr. Weller, Junior, with the air of a Solomon in smalls. "But vot sort of a vheel do you call that thing in front of you, and vot's its pertikler objeck? a top of a coach instead o' under it?" "This yer wheel means Revolution," said the driver. "It do, Samivel, it do," interjected his father dolorously. "And in my opinion it's a worse Revolution than that there French one itself. A coach vithout 'osses, vheels instead of vheelers, and a driver vithout a vhip! Oh Sammy, Sammy, to think it should come to _this_!!!" The driver--if it be not desecration to a noble old name so to designate him--gave a turn to his wheel and the autocar started. Mr. Winkle, who sat at the extreme edge, waggled his shadowy legs forlornly in the air; Mr. Snodgrass, who sat next to him, snorted lugubriously; Mr. Tupman turned paler than even a Stygian shade has a right to do. Mr. Pickwick took off his glasses and wiped them furtively. "Sam," he whispered hysterically in the ear of his faithful servitor, "Sam, this is dreadful! A--ahem!--vehicle with no visible means of propulsion pounding along like--eh--Saint Denis without his head, is more uncanny than Charon's boat."