As Richard's idle glance came back from the window, it caught the brown eyes of Mr.Pickwick considering him through a silvery, fringy thicket of hair.

Mr.Pickwick was said to be royally descended; however that might have been, indubitably his pedigree harbored somewhere both a door-mat and a mop.
"Rats!" observed Richard to Mr.Pickwick.
Richard did not say this because it was true, but to show Mr.Pickwick that the ties which bound them were friendly.

On his side, Mr.Pickwick, albeit he stood well aware how there was never a rat in the room, arose vivaciously and went snuffling and scuffling behind curtains and beneath sofas, and all in a mood prodigiously dire.
The room being exhaustively searched, Mr.Pickwick came and sat by Richard, and with yelp and howl, and at intervals a little epileptic bark, proceeded to disparage all manners and septs of rats, and spake slightingly of all such vermin deer.

Having freed his mind on the important subject of rats, Mr.Pickwick returned to silence and his cushion and curled up.
Matzai, the Japanese valet, brought in the breakfast--steak, potatoes, eggs, toast, marmalade, and coffee.

The deft Matzai placed the tray on the mahogany at Richard's elbow.