Pickwick Papers

'Weal pie,' said Mr. Weller, soliloquising, as he arranged the
eatables on the grass. 'Wery good thing is weal pie, when you
know the lady as made it, and is quite sure it ain't kittens; and
arter all though, where's the odds, when they're so like weal that
the wery piemen themselves don't know the difference?'

'Don't they, Sam?' said Mr. Pickwick.

'Not they, sir,' replied Mr. Weller, touching his hat. 'I lodged
in the same house vith a pieman once, sir, and a wery nice man
he was--reg'lar clever chap, too--make pies out o' anything, he
could. "What a number o' cats you keep, Mr. Brooks," says I,
when I'd got intimate with him. "Ah," says he, "I do--a good
many," says he, "You must be wery fond o' cats," says I. "Other
people is," says he, a-winkin' at me; "they ain't in season till the
winter though," says he. "Not in season!" says I. "No," says he,
"fruits is in, cats is out." "Why, what do you mean?" says I.
"Mean!" says he. "That I'll never be a party to the combination
o' the butchers, to keep up the price o' meat," says he. "Mr.
Weller," says he, a-squeezing my hand wery hard, and vispering
in my ear--"don't mention this here agin--but it's the seasonin'
as does it. They're all made o' them noble animals," says he,
a-pointin' to a wery nice little tabby kitten, "and I seasons 'em
for beefsteak, weal or kidney, 'cording to the demand. And more
than that," says he, "I can make a weal a beef-steak, or a beef-
steak a kidney, or any one on 'em a mutton, at a minute's notice,
just as the market changes, and appetites wary!"'

- The Pickwick Papers, chapter 19.