Explore "Mr Wardle's Servant Joe" by Charles Dickens on Textopian. Read with annotations and highlights.
AN old country gentleman named Wardle had a servant of whom he was very proud, not because of the latter's diligence, but because Joe, commonly called the "Fat Boy," was a character which could not be matched anywhere in the world. At the time when our story opens, Mr. Pickwick of London, and three others of his literary club, were traveling in search of adventure. With Mr. Pickwick, the founder and head of the Pickwick club, were Mr. Tupman, whose great weakness for the ladies brought him frequent troubles, Mr. Winkle, whose desire to appear as a sport brought much ridicule upon himself, and Mr. Snodgrass, whose poetic nature induced him to write many romantic verses which amused his friends and all who read them. These four Pickwickians were introduced one day to Mr. Wardle, his aged sister Miss Rachel Wardle, and his two daughters, Emily and Isabella, as they were looking at some army reviews from their coach.
Mr. Wardle hospitably asked Mr. Pickwick and his friends to join them in the coach.