[Illustration]
_Illustrative, like the preceding one, of the old Proverb, that
Adversity brings a Man acquainted with Strange Bed-fellows.
Likewise containing Mr. Pickwick's extraordinary and startling
Announcement to Mr. Samuel Weller_
When Mr. Pickwick opened his eyes next morning, the first object
upon which they rested, was Samuel Weller, seated upon a small black
portmanteau, intently regarding, apparently in a condition of profound
abstraction, the stately figure of the dashing Mr. Smangle; while Mr.
Smangle himself, who was already partially dressed, was seated on his
bedstead, occupied in the desperately hopeless attempt of staring Mr.
Weller out of countenance. We say desperately hopeless, because Sam,
with a comprehensive gaze which took in Mr. Smangle's cap, feet, head,
face, legs, and whiskers, all at the same time, continued to look
steadily on, with every demonstration of lively satisfaction, but with
no more regard to Mr. Smangle's personal sentiments on the subject than
he would have displayed had he been inspecting a wooden statue, or a
straw-embowelled Guy Fawkes.
"Well; will you know me again?" said Mr. Smangle, with a frown.
"I'd svear to you anyveres, sir," replied Sam, cheerfully.
"Don't be impertinent to a gentleman, sir," said Mr. Smangle.
"Not on no account," replied Sam. "If you'll tell me ven he vakes, I'll
be upon the wery best extra-super behaviour!" This observation, having
a remote tendency to imply that Mr. Smangle was no gentleman, kindled
his ire.
"Mivins!" said Mr. Smangle, with a passionate air.
"What's the office?" replied that gentleman from his couch.
"Who the devil is this fellow?"
"'Gad," said Mr. Mivins, looking lazily out from under the bed-clothes,
"I ought to ask _you_ that. Hasn't he any business here?"
"No," replied Mr. Smangle.
"Then knock him down-stairs, and tell him not to presume to get up till
I come and kick him," rejoined Mr. Mivins: with this prompt advice that
excellent gentleman again betook himself to slumber.
The conversation exhibiting these unequivocal symptoms of verging on
the personal, Mr. Pickwick deemed it a fit point at which to interpose.
"Sam," said Mr. Pickwick.
"Sir?" rejoined that gentleman.
"Has anything new occurred since last night?"
"Nothin' partickler, sir," replied Sam, glancing at Mr. Smangle's
whiskers; "the late prewailance of a close and confined atmosphere has
been rayther favourable to the growth of veeds, of an alarmin' and
sangvinary natur'; but vith that 'ere exception things is quiet enough."
"I shall get up," said Mr. Pickwick; "give me some clean things."
Whatever hostile intentions Mr. Smangle might have entertained, his
thoughts were speedily diverted by the unpacking of the portmanteau;
the contents of which appeared to impress him at once with a most
favourable opinion, not only of Mr. Pickwick, but of Sam also, who, he
took an early opportunity of declaring in a tone of voice loud enough
for that eccentric personage to overhear, was a regular thorough-bred
original, and consequently the very man after his own heart. As to Mr.
Pickwick, the affection he conceived for him knew no limits.
"Now is there anything I can do for you, my dear sir?" said Smangle.
"Nothing that I am aware of, I am obliged to you," replied Mr.
Pickwick.
"No linen that you want sent to the washerwoman's? I know a delightful
washerwoman outside, that comes for my things twice a week; and, by
Jove!--how devilish lucky!--this is the day she calls. Shall I put
any of those little things up with mine? Don't say anything about the
trouble. Confound and curse it! if one gentleman under a cloud, is not
to put himself a little out of the way to assist another gentleman in
the same condition, what's human nature?"
Thus spake Mr. Smangle, edging himself meanwhile as near as possible
to the portmanteau, and beaming forth looks of the most fervent and
disinterested friendship.
"There's nothing you want to give out for the man to brush, my dear
creature, is there?" resumed Smangle.
"Nothin' whatever, my fine feller," rejoined Sam, taking the reply into
his own mouth. "P'raps if vun of us wos to brush, without troubling the
man, it 'ud be more agreeable for all parties, as the schoolmaster said
wen the young gentleman objected to being flogged by the butler."
"And there's nothing that I can send in my little box to the
washerwoman's, is there?" said Smangle, turning from Sam to Mr.
Pickwick, with an air of some discomfiture.
"Nothin' whatever, sir," retorted Sam; "I'm afeerd the little box must
be chock-full o' your own as it is."
This speech was accompanied with such a very expressive look at that
particular portion of Mr. Smangle's attire, by the appearance of which
the skill of laundresses in getting up gentlemen's linen is generally
tested, that he was fain to turn upon his heel, and, for the present at
any rate, to give up all design on Mr. Pickwick's purse and wardrobe.
He accordingly retired in dudgeon to the racket-ground, where he made a
light and wholesome breakfast on a couple of the cigars which had been
purchased on the previous night.
Mr. Mivins, who was no smoker, and whose account for small articles of
chandlery had also reached down to the bottom of the slate, and been
"carried over" to the other side, remained in bed, and, in his own
words, "took it out in sleep."
After breakfasting in a small closet attached to the coffee-room,
which bore the imposing title of the Snuggery; the temporary inmate
of which, in consideration of a small additional charge, had the
unspeakable advantage of overhearing all the conversation in the
coffee-room aforesaid; and after despatching Mr. Weller on some
necessary errands, Mr. Pickwick repaired to the Lodge, to consult Mr.
Roker concerning his future accommodation.
"Accommodation, eh?" said that gentleman, consulting a large book.
"Plenty of that, Mr. Pickvick. Your chummage ticket will be on
twenty-seven, in the third."
"Oh," said Mr. Pickwick, "my what, did you say?"
"Your chummage ticket," replied Mr. Roker; "you're up to that?"
"Not quite," replied Mr. Pickwick, with a smile.
"Why," said Mr. Roker, "it's as plain as Salisbury. You'll have a
chummage ticket upon twenty-seven in the third, and them as is in the
room will be your chums."
"Are there many of them?" inquired Mr. Pickwick, dubiously.
"Three," replied Mr. Roker.
Mr. Pickwick coughed.
"One of 'em's a parson," said Mr. Roker, filling up a little piece of
paper as he spoke; "another's a butcher."
"Eh?" exclaimed Mr. Pickwick.
"A butcher," repeated Mr. Roker, giving the nib of his pen a tap on the
desk to cure it of a disinclination to mark. "What a thorough-paced
goer he used to be sure-ly! You remember Tom Martin, Neddy?" said
Roker, appealing to another man in the lodge, who was paring the mud
off his shoes with a five-and-twenty bladed pocket-knife.
"_I_ should think so," replied the party addressed, with a strong
emphasis on the personal pronoun.
"Bless my dear eyes!" said Mr. Roker, shaking his head slowly from
side to side, and gazing abstractedly out of the grated windows before
him, as if he were fondly recalling some peaceful scene of his early
youth; "it seems but yesterday that he whopped the coal-heaver down
Fox-under-the-Hill by the wharf there. I think I can see him now, a
coming up the Strand between the two street-keepers, a little sobered
by the bruising, with a patch o' winegar and brown paper over his
right eyelid, and that 'ere lovely bulldog, as pinned the little boy
arterwards, a following at his heels. What a rum thing Time is, ain't
it, Neddy?"
The gentleman to whom these observations were addressed, who appeared
of a taciturn and thoughtful cast, merely echoed the inquiry; Mr.
Roker, shaking off the poetical and gloomy train of thought into which
he had been betrayed, descended to the common business of life, and
resumed his pen.
"Do you know what the third gentleman is?" inquired Mr. Pickwick, not
very much gratified by this description of his future associates.
"What is that Simpson, Neddy?" said Mr. Roker, turning to his companion.
"What Simpson?" said Neddy.
"Why, him in twenty-seven in the third, that this gentleman's going to
be chummed on."
"Oh, him!" replied Neddy: "he's nothing exactly. He was a horse
chaunter: he's a leg now."
"Ah, so I thought," rejoined Mr. Roker, closing the book, and placing
the small piece of paper in Mr. Pickwick's hands. "That's the ticket,
sir."
Very much perplexed by this summary disposition of his person, Mr.
Pickwick walked back into the prison, revolving in his mind what he had
better do. Convinced, however, that before he took any other steps it
would be advisable to see, and hold personal converse with, the three
gentlemen with whom it was proposed to quarter him, he made the best of
his way to the third flight.
After groping about in the gallery for some time, attempting in the
dim light to decipher the numbers on the different doors, he at
length appealed to a potboy, who happened to be pursuing his morning
occupation of gleaning for pewter.
"Which is twenty-seven, my good fellow?" said Mr. Pickwick.
"Five doors further on," replied the potboy. "There's the likeness of a
man being hung, and smoking a pipe the while, chalked outside the door."
Guided by this direction, Mr. Pickwick proceeded slowly along the
gallery until he encountered the "portrait of a gentleman," above
described, upon whose countenance he tapped, with the knuckle of his
fore-finger--gently at first, and then audibly. After repeating this
process several times without effect, he ventured to open the door and
peep in.
There was only one man in the room, and he was leaning out of window as
far as he could without overbalancing himself, endeavouring, with great
perseverance, to spit upon the crown of the hat of a personal friend on
the parade below. As neither speaking, coughing, sneezing, knocking,
nor any other ordinary mode of attracting attention, made this person
aware of the presence of a visitor, Mr. Pickwick, after some delay,
stepped up to the window, and pulled him gently by the coat-tail. The
individual brought in his head and shoulders, with great swiftness, and
surveying Mr. Pickwick from head to foot, demanded in a surly tone what
the--something beginning with a capital H--he wanted.
"I believe," said Mr. Pickwick, consulting his ticket, "I believe this
is twenty-seven in the third?"
"Well?" replied the gentleman.
"I have come here in consequence of receiving this bit paper," rejoined
Mr. Pickwick.
"Hand it over," said the gentleman.
Mr. Pickwick complied.
"I think Roker might have chummed you somewhere else," said Mr. Simpson
(for it was the leg), after a very discontented sort of a pause.
Mr. Pickwick thought so also; but, under all the circumstances, he
considered it a matter of sound policy to be silent.
Mr. Simpson mused for a few moments after this, and then, thrusting
his head out of the window, gave a shrill whistle, and pronounced some
word aloud, several times. What the word was Mr. Pickwick could not
distinguish; but he rather inferred that it must be some nickname which
distinguished Mr. Martin: from the fact of a great number of gentlemen
on the ground below, immediately proceeding to cry "Butcher!" in
imitation of the tone in which that useful class of society are wont,
diurnally, to make their presence known at area railings.
Subsequent occurrences confirmed the accuracy of Mr. Pickwick's
impression; for, in a few seconds, a gentleman, prematurely broad for
his years: clothed in a professional blue jean frock, and top-boots
with circular toes: entered the room nearly out of breath, closely
followed by another gentleman in very shabby black, and a sealskin cap.
The latter gentleman, who fastened his coat all the way up to his chin
by means of a pin and a button alternately, had a very coarse red face,
and looked like a drunken chaplain; which, indeed, he was.
These two gentlemen having by turns perused Mr. Pickwick's billet,
the one expressed his opinion that it was "a rig," and the other his
conviction that it was "a go." Having recorded their feelings in these
very intelligible terms, they looked at Mr. Pickwick and each other in
awkward silence.
"It's an aggravating thing, just as we got the beds so snug," said
the chaplain, looking at three dirty mattresses, each rolled up in a
blanket: which occupied one corner of the room during the day, and
formed a kind of slab, on which were placed an old cracked basin, ewer,
and soap-dish, of common yellow earthenware, with a blue flower. "Very
aggravating."
Mr. Martin expressed the same opinion in rather stronger terms: Mr.
Simpson, after having let a variety of expletive adjectives loose
upon society without any substantive to accompany them, tucked up his
sleeves, and began to wash the greens for dinner.
While this was going on, Mr. Pickwick had been eyeing the room, which
was filthily dirty, and smelt intolerably close. There was no vestige
of either carpet, curtain, or blind. There was not even a closet in it.
Unquestionably there were but few things to put away, if there had been
one; but, however few in number, or small in individual amount, still,
remnants of loaves and pieces of cheese, and damp towels, and scrags
of meat, and articles of wearing apparel, and mutilated crockery,
and bellows without nozzles, and toasting-forks without prongs, _do_
present somewhat of an uncomfortable appearance when they are scattered
about the floor of a small apartment, which is the common sitting and
sleeping room of three idle men.
"I suppose this can be managed somehow," said the butcher, after a
pretty long silence. "What will you take to go out?"
"I beg your pardon," replied Mr. Pickwick. "What did you say? I hardly
understand you."
"What will you take to be paid out?" said the butcher. "The regular
chummage is two-and-six. Will you take three bob?"
"--And a bender?" suggested the clerical gentleman.
"Well, I don't mind that; it's only twopence a-piece more," said Mr.
Martin.
"What do you say, now? We'll pay you out for three-and-sixpence a week.
Come!"
"And stand a gallon of beer down," chimed in Mr. Simpson. "There!"
"And drink it on the spot," said the chaplain. "Now!"
"I really am so wholly ignorant of the rules of this place," returned
Mr. Pickwick, "that I do not yet comprehend you. _Can_ I live anywhere
else? I thought I could not."
At this inquiry Mr. Martin looked, with a countenance of excessive
surprise, at his two friends, and then each gentleman pointed with his
right thumb over his left shoulder. This action, imperfectly described
in words by the very feeble term of "over the left," when performed by
any number of ladies or gentlemen who are accustomed to act in unison,
has a very graceful and airy effect; its expression is one of light and
playful sarcasm.
"_Can_ you!" repeated Mr. Martin, with a smile of pity.
"Well, if I knew as little of life as that, I'd eat my hat and swallow
the buckle whole," said the clerical gentleman.
"So would I," added the sporting one, solemnly.
After this introductory preface, the three chums informed Mr. Pickwick,
in a breath, that money was in the Fleet, just what money was out of
it; that it would instantly procure him almost anything he desired; and
that, supposing he had it, and had no objection to spend it, if he only
signified his wish to have a room to himself he might take possession
of one, furnished and fitted to boot, in half an hour's time.
With this, the parties separated, very much to their common
satisfaction: Mr. Pickwick once more retracing his steps to the lodge:
and the three companions adjourned to the coffee-room, there to spend
the five shillings which the clerical gentleman had, with admirable
prudence and foresight, borrowed of him for the purpose.
"I knowed it!" said Mr. Roker, with a chuckle, when Mr. Pickwick stated
the object with which he had returned. "Didn't I say so, Neddy?"
The philosophical owner of the universal penknife growled an
affirmative.
"I knowed you'd want a room for yourself, bless you!" said Mr. Roker.
"Let me see. You'll want some furniture. You'll hire that of me, I
suppose? That's the reg'lar thing."
"With great pleasure," replied Mr. Pickwick.
"There's a capital room up in the coffee-room flight, that belongs to a
Chancery prisoner," said Mr. Roker. "It'll stand you in a pound a week.
I suppose you don't mind that?"
"Not at all," said Mr. Pickwick.
"Just step there with me," said Roker, taking up his hat with great
alacrity; "the matter's settled in five minutes. Lord! why didn't you
say at first that you was willing to come down handsome?"
The matter was soon arranged, as the turnkey had foretold. The Chancery
prisoner had been there long enough to have lost friends, fortune,
home, and happiness, and to have acquired the right of having a room
to himself. As he laboured, however, under the inconvenience of often
wanting a morsel of bread, he eagerly listened to Mr. Pickwick's
proposal to rent the apartment, and readily covenanted and agreed
to yield him up the sole and undisturbed possession thereof, in
consideration of the weekly payment of twenty shillings; from which
fund he furthermore contracted to pay out any person or persons that
might be chummed upon it.
As they struck the bargain, Mr. Pickwick surveyed him with a painful
interest. He was a tall, gaunt, cadaverous man, in an old great-coat
and slippers: with sunken cheeks, and a restless, eager eye. His lips
were bloodless, and his bones sharp and thin. God help him! the iron
teeth of confinement and privation had been slowly filing him down for
twenty years.
"And where will you live meanwhile, sir?" said Mr. Pickwick, as he laid
the amount of the first week's rent, in advance, on the tottering table.
The man gathered up the money with a trembling hand, and replied that
he didn't know yet; he must go and see where he could move his bed to.
"I am afraid, sir," said Mr. Pickwick, laying his hand gently and
compassionately on his arm; "I am afraid you will have to live in some
noisy crowded place. Now, pray, consider this room your own when you
want quiet, or when any of your friends come to see you."
"Friends!" interposed the man, in a voice which rattled in his throat.
"If I lay dead at the bottom of the deepest mine in the world; tight
screwed down and soldered in my coffin; rotting in the dark and filthy
ditch that drags its slime along, beneath the foundations of this
prison; I could not be more forgotten or unheeded than I am here. I
am a dead man; dead to society, without the pity they bestow on those
whose souls have passed to judgment. Friends to see _me_! My God! I
have sunk, from the prime of life into old age, in this place, and
there is not one to raise his hand above my bed when I lie dead upon
it, and say, 'It is a blessing he is gone!'"
The excitement, which had cast an unwonted light over the man's face
while he spoke, subsided as he concluded; and, pressing his withered
hands together in a hasty and disordered manner, he shuffled from the
room.
"Rides rather rusty," said Mr. Roker, with a smile. "Ah! they're like
the elephants. They feel it now and then, and it makes 'em wild!"
Having made this deeply sympathising remark, Mr. Roker entered upon
his arrangements with such expedition, that in a short time the room
was furnished with a carpet, six chairs, a table, a sofa bedstead, a
tea-kettle, and various small articles, on hire, at the very reasonable
rate of seven-and-twenty shillings and sixpence per week.
"Now, is there anything more we can do for you?" inquired Mr. Roker,
looking round with great satisfaction, and gaily chinking the first
week's hire in his closed fist.
"Why, yes," said Mr. Pickwick, who had been musing deeply for some
time. "Are there any people here, who run on errands, and so forth?"
"Outside, do you mean?" inquired Mr. Roker.
"Yes. I mean who are able to go outside. Not prisoners."
"Yes, there is," said Roker. "There's an unfortunate devil, who has got
a friend on the poor side, that's glad to do anything of that sort.
He's been running odd jobs, and that, for the last two months. Shall I
send him?"
"If you please," rejoined Mr. Pickwick. "Stay; no. The poor side, you
say? I should like to see it. I'll go to him myself."
The poor side of a debtor's prison is, as its name imports, that in
which the most miserable and abject class of debtors are confined. A
prisoner having declared upon the poor side, pays neither rent nor
chummage. His fees, upon entering and leaving the gaol, are reduced in
amount, and he becomes entitled to a share of some small quantities of
food: to provide which, a few charitable persons have, from time to
time, left trifling legacies in their wills. Most of our readers will
remember that, until within a very few years past, there was a kind of
iron cage in the wall of the Fleet Prison, within which was posted some
man of hungry looks, who, from time to time, rattled a money-box, and
exclaimed in a mournful voice, "Pray, remember the poor debtors; pray,
remember the poor debtors." The receipts of this box, when there were
any, were divided among the poor prisoners; and the men on the poor
side relieved each other in this degrading office.
Although this custom has been abolished, and the cage is now boarded
up, the miserable and destitute condition of these unhappy persons
remains the same. We no longer suffer them to appeal at the prison
gates to the charity and compassion of the passers-by; but we still
leave unblotted in the leaves of our statute book, for the reverence
and admiration of succeeding ages, that just and wholesome law which
declares that the sturdy felon shall be fed and clothed, and that the
penniless debtor shall be left to die of starvation and nakedness.
This is no fiction. Not a week passes over our heads, but, in every
one of our prisons for debt, some of these men must inevitably expire
in the slow agonies of want, if they were not relieved by their
fellow-prisoners.
Turning these things in his mind, as he mounted the narrow staircase
at the foot of which Roker had left him, Mr. Pickwick gradually worked
himself to the boiling-over point; and so excited was he with his
reflections on this subject, that he had burst into the room to which
he had been directed, before he had any distinct recollection, either
of the place in which he was, or of the object of his visit.
The general aspect of the room recalled him to himself at once; but he
had no sooner cast his eyes on the figure of a man who was brooding
over the dusty fire, than, letting his hat fall on the floor, he stood
perfectly fixed, and immovable, with astonishment.
Yes; in tattered garments, and without a coat; his common calico shirt
yellow and in rags; his hair hanging over his face; his features
changed with suffering, and pinched with famine; there sat Mr. Alfred
Jingle: his head resting on his hand, his eyes fixed upon the fire, and
his whole appearance denoting misery and dejection!
Near him, leaning listlessly against the wall, stood a strong-built
countryman, flicking with a worn-out hunting-whip the top-boot that
adorned his right foot: his left being (for he dressed by easy stages)
thrust into an old slipper. Horses, dogs, and drink, had brought him
there pell-mell. There was a rusty spur on the solitary boot, which
he occasionally jerked into the empty air, at the same time giving
the boot a smart blow, and muttering some of the sounds by which a
sportsman encourages his horse. He was riding, in imagination, some
desperate steeplechase at that moment. Poor wretch! He never rode a
match on the swiftest animal in his costly stud, with half the speed at
which he had torn along the course that ended in the Fleet.
On the opposite side of the room an old man was seated on a small
wooden box, with his eyes riveted on the floor, and his face settled
into an expression of the deepest and most hopeless despair. A young
girl--his little granddaughter--was hanging about him: endeavouring,
with a thousand childish devices, to engage his attention; but the old
man neither saw nor heard her. The voice that had been music to him,
and the eyes that had been light, fell coldly on his senses. His limbs
were shaking with disease, and the palsy had fastened on his mind.
There were two or three other men in the room, congregated in a little
knot, and noisily talking among themselves. There was a lean and
haggard woman, too--a prisoner's wife--who was watering, with great
solicitude, the wretched stump of a dried-up, withered plant, which, it
was plain to see, could never send forth a green leaf again: too true
an emblem, perhaps, of the office she had come there to discharge.
Such were the objects which presented themselves to Mr. Pickwick's
view, as he looked round him in amazement. The noise of some one
stumbling hastily into the room, roused him. Turning his eyes towards
the door, they encountered the new comer; and in him, through his rags
and dirt, he recognised the familiar features of Mr. Job Trotter.
"Mr. Pickwick!" exclaimed Job aloud.
"Eh?" said Jingle, starting from his seat. "Mr.----! So it is--queer
place--strange thing--serves me right--very." Mr. Jingle thrust his
hands into the place where his trousers pockets used to be, and,
dropping his chin upon his breast, sank back into his chair.
Mr. Pickwick was affected; the two men looked so very miserable. The
sharp involuntary glance Jingle had cast at a small piece of raw loin
of mutton, which Job had brought in with him, said more of their
reduced state than two hours' explanation could have done. Mr. Pickwick
looked mildly at Jingle, and said:
"I should like to speak to you in private. Will you step out for an
instant?"
"Certainly," said Jingle, rising hastily. "Can't step far--no danger
of over-walking yourself here--Spike park--grounds pretty--romantic,
but not extensive--open for public inspection--family always in
town--housekeeper desperately careful--very."
"You have forgotten your coat," said Mr. Pickwick, as they walked out
to the staircase, and closed the door after them.
"Eh?" said Jingle. "Spout--dear relation--Uncle Tom--couldn't help
it--must eat, you know. Wants of nature--and all that."
"What do you mean?"
"Gone, my dear sir--last coat--can't help it. Lived on
a pair of boots--whole fortnight. Silk umbrella--ivory
handle--week--fact--honour--ask Job--knows it."
"Lived for three weeks upon a pair of boots, and a silk umbrella with
an ivory handle!" exclaimed Mr. Pickwick, who had only heard of such
things in shipwrecks, or read of them in _Constable's Miscellany_.
"True," said Jingle, nodding his head. "Pawnbroker's shop--duplicates
here--small sums--mere nothing--all rascals."
"Oh," said Mr. Pickwick, much relieved by this explanation; "I
understand you. You have pawned your wardrobe."
"Everything--Job's too--all shirts gone--never mind--saves washing.
Nothing soon--lie in bed--starve--die--Inquest--little bone-house--poor
prisoner--common necessaries--hush it up--gentlemen of the
jury--warden's tradesmen--keep it snug--natural death--coroner's
order--workhouse funeral--serve him right--all over--drop the curtain."
Jingle delivered this singular summary of his prospects in life, with
his accustomed volubility, and with various twitches of the countenance
to counterfeit smiles. Mr. Pickwick easily perceived that his
recklessness was assumed, and looking him full, but not unkindly in the
face, saw that his eyes were moist with tears.
"Good fellow," said Jingle, pressing his hand, and turning his
head away. "Ungrateful dog--boyish to cry--can't help it--bad
fever--weak--ill--hungry. Deserved it all--but suffered much--very."
Wholly unable to keep up appearances any longer, and perhaps rendered
worse by the effort he had made, the dejected stroller sat down on the
stairs, and, covering his face with his hands, sobbed like a child.
"Come, come," said Mr. Pickwick, with considerable emotion, "we'll see
what can be done, when I know all about the matter. Here, Job; where is
that fellow?"
"Here, sir," replied Job, presenting himself on the staircase. We have
described him, by-the-bye, as having deeply sunken eyes, in the best
of times. In his present state of want and distress, he looked as if
those features had gone out of town altogether.
"Here, sir," cried Job.
"Come here, sir," said Mr. Pickwick, trying to look stern, with four
large tears running down his waistcoat. "Take that, sir."
Take what? In the ordinary acceptation of such language, it should have
been a blow. As the world runs, it ought to have been a sound, hearty
cuff; for Mr. Pickwick had been duped, deceived, and wronged by the
destitute outcast who was now wholly in his power. Must we tell the
truth? It was something from Mr. Pickwick's waistcoat-pocket, which
chinked as it was given into Job's hand, and the giving of which,
somehow or other, imparted a sparkle to the eye, and a swelling to the
heart, of our excellent old friend, as he hurried away.
Sam had returned when Mr. Pickwick reached his own room, and was
inspecting the arrangements that had been made for his comfort, with
a kind of grim satisfaction which was very pleasant to look upon.
Having a decided objection to his master's being there at all, Mr.
Weller appeared to consider it a high moral duty not to appear too much
pleased with anything that was done, said, suggested, or proposed.
"Well, Sam?" said Mr. Pickwick.
"Well, sir?" replied Mr. Weller.
"Pretty comfortable now, eh, Sam?"
"Pretty vell, sir," responded Sam, looking round him in a disparaging
manner.
"Have you seen Mr. Tupman and our other friends?"
"Yes, I _have_ seen 'em, sir, and they're a comin' to-morrow, and wos
wery much surprised to hear they warn't to come to-day," replied Sam.
"You have brought the things I wanted?"
Mr. Weller in reply pointed to various packages which he had arranged,
as neatly as he could, in a corner of the room.
"Very well, Sam," said Mr. Pickwick, after a little hesitation; "listen
to what I am going to say, Sam."
"Cert'nly, sir," rejoined Mr. Weller, "fire away, sir."
"I have felt from the first, Sam," said Mr. Pickwick, with much
solemnity, "that this is not the place to bring a young man to."
"Nor an old 'un, neither, sir," observed Mr. Weller.
"You're quite right, Sam," said Mr. Pickwick; "but old men may come
here, through their own heedlessness and unsuspicion; and young men may
be brought here by the selfishness of those they serve. It is better
for those young men, in every point of view, that they should not
remain here. Do you understand me, Sam?"
"Vy no, sir, I do +NOT+," replied Mr. Weller, doggedly.
"Try, Sam," said Mr. Pickwick.
"Vell, sir," rejoined Sam, after a short pause, "I think I see your
drift; and if I do see your drift, it's my 'pinion that you're a
comin' it a great deal too strong, as the mail coachman said to the
snow-storm, ven it overtook him."
"I see you comprehend me, Sam," said Mr. Pickwick. "Independently of my
wish that you should not be idling about a place like this for years
to come, I feel that for a debtor in the Fleet to be attended by his
man-servant is a monstrous absurdity. Sam," said Mr. Pickwick, "for a
time, you must leave me."
"Oh, for a time, eh, sir?" rejoined Mr. Weller, rather sarcastically.
"Yes, for the time that I remain here," said Mr. Pickwick. "Your wages
I shall continue to pay. Any one of my three friends will be happy to
take you, were it only out of respect to me. And if I ever do leave
this place, Sam," added Mr. Pickwick, with assumed cheerfulness: "if I
do, I pledge you my word that you shall return to me instantly."
"Now I'll tell you wot it is, sir," said Mr. Weller, in a grave and
solemn voice, "this here sort o' thing won't do at all, so don't let's
hear no more about it."
"I am serious and resolved, Sam," said Mr. Pickwick.
"You air, air you, sir?" inquired Mr. Weller, firmly. "Wery good, sir.
Then so am I."
Thus speaking, Mr. Weller fixed his hat on his head with great
precision, and abruptly left the room.
"Sam!" cried Mr. Pickwick, calling after him, "Sam! Here!"
But the long gallery ceased to re-echo the sound of footsteps. Sam
Weller was gone.