Such were the objects which presented themselves to Mr.Pickwick's view, as he looked round him in amazement. Thenoise 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 thefamiliar features of Mr. Job Trotter.

'Mr. Pickwick!' exclaimed Job aloud.

'Eh?' said Jingle, starting from his seat. 'Mr --! So it is--queer place--strange things--serves me right--very.' Mr. Jinglethrust his hands into the place where his trousers pockets used tobe, 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 smallpiece of raw loin of mutton, which Job had brought in with him,said more of their reduced state than two hours' explanationcould have done. Mr. Pickwick looked mildly at Jingle, and said--

'I should like to speak to you in private. Will you step out foran instant?'

'Certainly,' said Jingle, rising hastily. 'Can't step far--nodanger of overwalking yourself here--spike park--groundspretty--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 theywalked 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 ofboots--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 umbrellawith an ivory handle!' exclaimed Mr. Pickwick, who had onlyheard of such things in shipwrecks or read of them in Constable'sMiscellany.

'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; 'Iunderstand you. You have pawned your wardrobe.'

'Everything--Job's too--all shirts gone--never mind--saveswashing. Nothing soon--lie in bed--starve--die--inquest--littlebone-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 himright--all over--drop the curtain.'

Jingle delivered this singular summary of his prospects in life,with his accustomed volubility, and with various twitches of thecountenance to counterfeit smiles. Mr. Pickwick easily perceivedthat his recklessness was assumed, and looking him full, but notunkindly, in the face, saw that his eyes were moist with tears.

'Good fellow,' said Jingle, pressing his hand, and turning hishead away. 'Ungrateful dog--boyish to cry--can't help it--badfever--weak--ill--hungry. Deserved it all--but suffered much--very.'Wholly unable to keep up appearances any longer, andperhaps rendered worse by the effort he had made, the dejectedstroller sat down on the stairs, and, covering his face with hishands, sobbed like a child.

'Come, come,' said Mr. Pickwick, with considerable emotion,'we will 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. Wehave described him, by the bye, as having deeply-sunken eyes, inthe best of times. In his present state of want and distress, helooked as if those features had gone out of town altogether.

'Here, sir,' cried Job.

'Come here, sir,' said Mr. Pickwick, trying to look stern, withfour large tears running down his waistcoat. 'Take that, sir.'

Take what? In the ordinary acceptation of such language, itshould have been a blow. As the world runs, it ought to havebeen a sound, hearty cuff; for Mr. Pickwick had been duped,deceived, and wronged by the destitute outcast who was nowwholly in his power. Must we tell the truth? It was somethingfrom Mr. Pickwick's waistcoat pocket, which chinked as it wasgiven into Job's hand, and the giving of which, somehow or otherimparted a sparkle to the eye, and a swelling to the heart, of ourexcellent 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 hiscomfort, with a kind of grim satisfaction which was very pleasantto look upon. Having a decided objection to his master's beingthere at all, Mr. Weller appeared to consider it a high moral dutynot 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 adisparaging manner.

'Have you seen Mr. Tupman and our other friends?'

'Yes, I HAVE seen 'em, sir, and they're a-comin' to-morrow, andwos 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 hadarranged, 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 muchsolemnity, '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 menmay come here through their own heedlessness and unsuspicion,and young men may be brought here by the selfishness of thosethey serve. It is better for those young men, in every point ofview, 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 yourdrift; 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 tothe snowstorm, ven it overtook him.'

'I see you comprehend me, Sam,' said Mr. Pickwick. 'Independentlyof my wish that you should not be idling about a placelike this, for years to come, I feel that for a debtor in the Fleet tobe attended by his manservant 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 friendswill be happy to take you, were it only out of respect to me. Andif I ever do leave this place, Sam,' added Mr. Pickwick, withassumed cheerfulness--'if I do, I pledge you my word that youshall return to me instantly.'

'Now I'll tell you wot it is, Sir,' said Mr. Weller, in a grave andsolemn voice. 'This here sort o' thing won't do at all, so don'tlet'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 greatprecision, 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.

CHAPTER XLIIISHOWING HOW Mr. SAMUEL WELLER GOT INTO DIFFICULTIES

In a lofty room, ill-lighted and worse ventilated, situated inPortugal Street, Lincoln's Inn Fields, there sit nearly thewhole year round, one, two, three, or four gentlemen in wigs,as the case may be, with little writing-desks before them,constructed after the fashion of those used by the judges of the land,barring the French polish. There is a box of barristers on theirright hand; there is an enclosure of insolvent debtors on their left;and there is an inclined plane of most especially dirty faces intheir front. These gentlemen are the Commissioners of theInsolvent Court, and the place in which they sit, is the InsolventCourt itself.

It is, and has been, time out of mind, the remarkable fate ofthis court to be, somehow or other, held and understood, by thegeneral consent of all the destitute shabby-genteel people inLondon, as their common resort, and place of daily refuge. It isalways full. The steams of beer and spirits perpetually ascend tothe ceiling, and, being condensed by the heat, roll down the wallslike rain; there are more old suits of clothes in it at one time,than will be offered for sale in all Houndsditch in a twelvemonth;more unwashed skins and grizzly beards than all the pumps andshaving-shops between Tyburn and Whitechapel could renderdecent, between sunrise and sunset.

It must not be supposed that any of these people have the leastshadow of business in, or the remotest connection with, the placethey so indefatigably attend. If they had, it would be no matter ofsurprise, and the singularity of the thing would cease. Some ofthem sleep during the greater part of the sitting; others carrysmall portable dinners wrapped in pocket-handkerchiefs orsticking out of their worn-out pockets, and munch and listenwith equal relish; but no one among them was ever known to havethe slightest personal interest in any case that was ever broughtforward. Whatever they do, there they sit from the first momentto the last. When it is heavy, rainy weather, they all come in, wetthrough; and at such times the vapours of the court are like thoseof a fungus-pit.

A casual visitor might suppose this place to be a templededicated to the Genius of Seediness. There is not a messenger orprocess-server attached to it, who wears a coat that was made forhim; not a tolerably fresh, or wholesome-looking man in thewhole establishment, except a little white-headed apple-facedtipstaff, and even he, like an ill-conditioned cherry preserved inbrandy, seems to have artificially dried and withered up into astate of preservation to which he can lay no natural claim. Thevery barristers' wigs are ill-powdered, and their curls lack crispness.

But the attorneys, who sit at a large bare table below thecommissioners, are, after all, the greatest curiosities. The professionalestablishment of the more opulent of these gentlemen, consists ofa blue bag and a boy; generally a youth of the Jewish persuasion.They have no fixed offices, their legal business being transactedin the parlours of public-houses, or the yards of prisons, whitherthey repair in crowds, and canvass for customers after the mannerof omnibus cads. They are of a greasy and mildewed appearance;and if they can be said to have any vices at all, perhaps drinkingand cheating are the most conspicuous among them. Theirresidences are usually on the outskirts of 'the Rules,' chieflylying within a circle of one mile from the obelisk in St. George'sFields. Their looks are not prepossessing, and their mannersare peculiar.

Mr. Solomon Pell, one of this learned body, was a fat, flabby,pale man, in a surtout which looked green one minute, andbrown the next, with a velvet collar of the same chameleon tints.His forehead was narrow, his face wide, his head large, and hisnose all on one side, as if Nature, indignant with the propensitiesshe observed in him in his birth, had given it an angry tweakwhich it had never recovered. Being short-necked and asthmatic,however, he respired principally through this feature; so, perhaps,what it wanted in ornament, it made up in usefulness.

'I'm sure to bring him through it,' said Mr. Pell.

'Are you, though?' replied the person to whom the assurancewas pledged.

'Certain sure,' replied Pell; 'but if he'd gone to any irregularpractitioner, mind you, I wouldn't have answered for the consequences.'

'Ah!' said the other, with open mouth.

'No, that I wouldn't,' said Mr. Pell; and he pursed up his lips,frowned, and shook his head mysteriously.

Now, the place where this discourse occurred was the public-house just opposite to the Insolvent Court; and the person withwhom it was held was no other than the elder Mr. Weller, whohad come there, to comfort and console a friend, whose petitionto be discharged under the act, was to be that day heard, and whoseattorney he was at that moment consulting.

'And vere is George?' inquired the old gentleman.

Mr. Pell jerked his head in the direction of a back parlour,whither Mr. Weller at once repairing, was immediately greetedin the warmest and most flattering manner by some half-dozenof his professional brethren, in token of their gratification at hisarrival. The insolvent gentleman, who had contracted a speculativebut imprudent passion for horsing long stages, which hadled to his present embarrassments, looked extremely well, andwas soothing the excitement of his feelings with shrimps and porter.

The salutation between Mr. Weller and his friends was strictlyconfined to the freemasonry of the craft; consisting of a jerkinground of the right wrist, and a tossing of the little finger into theair at the same time. We once knew two famous coachmen (theyare dead now, poor fellows) who were twins, and between whoman unaffected and devoted attachment existed. They passedeach other on the Dover road, every day, for twenty-four years,never exchanging any other greeting than this; and yet, whenone died, the other pined away, and soon afterwards followed him!

'Vell, George,' said Mr. Weller senior, taking off his uppercoat, and seating himself with his accustomed gravity. 'How is it?All right behind, and full inside?'

Title: The Pickwick Papers
Author: Charles Dickens
Viewed 229493 times

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