The Pickwick Papers
says the patient; “good-night.” Next mornin’ he gets up, has a fire lit,
orders in three shillins’ wurth o’ crumpets, toasts ‘em all, eats ‘em
all, and blows his brains out.’
‘What did he do that for?’ inquired Mr. Pickwick abruptly; for he was
considerably startled by this tragical termination of the narrative.
‘Wot did he do it for, Sir?’ reiterated Sam. ‘Wy, in support of his
great principle that crumpets wos wholesome, and to show that he
wouldn’t be put out of his way for nobody!’
With such like shiftings and changings of the discourse, did Mr. Weller
meet his master’s questioning on the night of his taking up his
residence in the Fleet. Finding all gentle remonstrance useless, Mr.
Pickwick at length yielded a reluctant consent to his taking lodgings by
the week, of a bald-headed cobbler, who rented a small slip room in one
of the upper galleries. To this humble apartment Mr. Weller moved a
mattress and bedding, which he hired of Mr. Roker; and, by the time he
lay down upon it at night, was as much at home as if he had been bred in
the prison, and his whole family had vegetated therein for three
generations.
‘Do you always smoke arter you goes to bed, old cock?’ inquired Mr.
Weller of his landlord, when they had both retired for the night.
‘Yes, I does, young bantam,’ replied the cobbler.
‘Will you allow me to in-quire wy you make up your bed under that ‘ere
deal table?’ said Sam.
‘’Cause I was always used to a four-poster afore I came here, and I find
the legs of the table answer just as well,’ replied the cobbler.
‘You’re a character, sir,’ said Sam.
‘I haven’t got anything of the kind belonging to me,’ rejoined the
cobbler, shaking his head; ‘and if you want to meet with a good one, I’m
afraid you’ll find some difficulty in suiting yourself at this register
office.’
The above short dialogue took place as Mr. Weller lay extended on his
mattress at one end of the room, and the cobbler on his, at the other;
the apartment being illumined by the light of a rush-candle, and the
cobbler’s pipe, which was glowing below the table, like a red-hot coal.
The conversation, brief as it was, predisposed Mr. Weller strongly in
his landlord’s favour; and, raising himself on his elbow, he took a more
lengthened survey of his appearance than he had yet had either time or
inclination to make.
He was a sallow man--all cobblers are; and had a strong bristly beard--
all cobblers have. His face was a queer, good-tempered, crooked-featured
piece of workmanship, ornamented with a couple of eyes that must have
worn a very joyous expression at one time, for they sparkled yet. The
man was sixty, by years, and Heaven knows how old by imprisonment, so
that his having any look approaching to mirth or contentment, was
singular enough. He was a little man, and, being half doubled up as he
lay in bed, looked about as long as he ought to have been without his
legs. He had a great red pipe in his mouth, and was smoking, and staring
at the rush-light, in a state of enviable placidity.
‘Have you been here long?’ inquired Sam, breaking the silence which had
lasted for some time.
‘Twelve year,’ replied the cobbler, biting the end of his pipe as he
spoke.
‘Contempt?’ inquired Sam.
The cobbler nodded.
‘Well, then,’ said Sam, with some sternness, ‘wot do you persevere in
bein’ obstinit for, vastin’ your precious life away, in this here
magnified pound? Wy don’t you give in, and tell the Chancellorship that
you’re wery sorry for makin’ his court contemptible, and you won’t do so
no more?’
The cobbler put his pipe in the corner of his mouth, while he smiled,
and then brought it back to its old place again; but said nothing.
‘Wy don’t you?’ said Sam, urging his question strenuously.
‘Ah,’ said the cobbler, ‘you don’t quite understand these matters. What
do you suppose ruined me, now?’
‘Wy,’ said Sam, trimming the rush-light, ‘I s’pose the beginnin’ wos,
that you got into debt, eh?’
‘Never owed a farden,’ said the cobbler; ‘try again.’
‘Well, perhaps,’ said Sam, ‘you bought houses, wich is delicate English
for goin’ mad; or took to buildin’, wich is a medical term for bein’
incurable.’
The cobbler shook his head and said, ‘Try again.’
‘You didn’t go to law, I hope?’ said Sam suspiciously.
‘Never in my life,’ replied the cobbler. ‘The fact is, I was ruined by
having money left me.’
‘Come, come,’ said Sam, ‘that von’t do. I wish some rich enemy ‘ud try
to vork my destruction in that ‘ere vay. I’d let him.’
‘Oh, I dare say you don’t believe it,’ said the cobbler, quietly smoking
his pipe. ‘I wouldn’t if I was you; but it’s true for all that.’
‘How wos it?’ inquired Sam, half induced to believe the fact already, by
the look the cobbler gave him.
‘Just this,’ replied the cobbler; ‘an old gentleman that I worked for,
down in the country, and a humble relation of whose I married--she’s
dead, God bless her, and thank Him for it!--was seized with a fit and
went off.’
‘Where?’ inquired Sam, who was growing sleepy after the numerous events
of the day.
‘How should I know where he went?’ said the cobbler, speaking through
his nose in an intense enjoyment of his pipe. ‘He went off dead.’
‘Oh, that indeed,’ said Sam. ‘Well?’
‘Well,’ said the cobbler, ‘he left five thousand pound behind him.’
‘And wery gen-teel in him so to do,’ said Sam.
‘One of which,’ continued the cobbler, ‘he left to me, ‘cause I married
his relation, you see.’
‘Wery good,’ murmured Sam.
‘And being surrounded by a great number of nieces and nevys, as was
always quarrelling and fighting among themselves for the property, he
makes me his executor, and leaves the rest to me in trust, to divide it
among ‘em as the will prowided.’
‘Wot do you mean by leavin’ it on trust?’ inquired Sam, waking up a
little. ‘If it ain’t ready-money, were’s the use on it?’
‘It’s a law term, that’s all,’ said the cobbler.
‘I don’t think that,’ said Sam, shaking his head. ‘There’s wery little
trust at that shop. Hows’ever, go on.’
Well,’ said the cobbler, ‘when I was going to take out a probate of the
will, the nieces and nevys, who was desperately disappointed at not
getting all the money, enters a caveat against it.’
What’s that?’ inquired Sam.
‘A legal instrument, which is as much as to say, it’s no go,’ replied
the cobbler.
‘I see,’ said Sam, ‘a sort of brother-in-law o’ the have-his-carcass.
Well.’
‘But,’ continued the cobbler, ‘finding that they couldn’t agree among
themselves, and consequently couldn’t get up a case against the will,
they withdrew the caveat, and I paid all the legacies. I’d hardly done
it, when one nevy brings an action to set the will aside. The case comes
on, some months afterwards, afore a deaf old gentleman, in a back room
somewhere down by Paul’s Churchyard; and arter four counsels had taken a
day a-piece to bother him regularly, he takes a week or two to consider,
and read the evidence in six volumes, and then gives his judgment that
how the testator was not quite right in his head, and I must pay all the
money back again, and all the costs. I appealed; the case come on before
three or four very sleepy gentlemen, who had heard it all before in the
other court, where they’re lawyers without work; the only difference
being, that, there, they’re called doctors, and in the other place
delegates, if you understand that; and they very dutifully confirmed the
decision of the old gentleman below. After that, we went into Chancery,
where we are still, and where I shall always be. My lawyers have had all
my thousand pound long ago; and what between the estate, as they call
it, and the costs, I’m here for ten thousand, and shall stop here, till
I die, mending shoes. Some gentlemen have talked of bringing it before
Parliament, and I dare say would have done it, only they hadn’t time to
come to me, and I hadn’t power to go to them, and they got tired of my
long letters, and dropped the business. And this is God’s truth, without
one word of suppression or exaggeration, as fifty people, both in this
place and out of it, very well know.’
The cobbler paused to ascertain what effect his story had produced on
Sam; but finding that he had dropped asleep, knocked the ashes out of
his pipe, sighed, put it down, drew the bed-clothes over his head, and
went to sleep, too.
Mr. Pickwick was sitting at breakfast, alone, next morning (Sam being
busily engaged in the cobbler’s room, polishing his master’s shoes and
brushing the black gaiters) when there came a knock at the door, which,
before Mr. Pickwick could cry ‘Come in!’ was followed by the appearance
of a head of hair and a cotton-velvet cap, both of which articles of
dress he had no difficulty in recognising as the personal property of
Mr. Smangle.
‘How are you?’ said that worthy, accompanying the inquiry with a score
or two of nods; ‘I say--do you expect anybody this morning? Three men--
devilish gentlemanly fellows--have been asking after you downstairs, and
knocking at every door on the hall flight; for which they’ve been most
infernally blown up by the collegians that had the trouble of opening
‘em.’
‘Dear me! How very foolish of them,’ said Mr. Pickwick, rising. ‘Yes; I
have no doubt they are some friends whom I rather expected to see,
yesterday.’
‘Friends of yours!’ exclaimed Smangle, seizing Mr. Pickwick by the hand.
‘Say no more. Curse me, they’re friends of mine from this minute, and
friends of Mivins’s, too. Infernal pleasant, gentlemanly dog, Mivins,
isn’t he?’ said Smangle, with great feeling.
‘I know so little of the gentleman,’ said Mr. Pickwick, hesitating,
‘that I--’
‘I know you do,’ interrupted Smangle, clasping Mr. Pickwick by the
shoulder. ‘You shall know him better. You’ll be delighted with him. That
man, Sir,’ said Smangle, with a solemn countenance, ‘has comic powers
that would do honour to Drury Lane Theatre.’
‘Has he indeed?’ said Mr. Pickwick.
‘Ah, by Jove he has!’ replied Smangle. ‘Hear him come the four cats in
the wheel-barrow--four distinct cats, sir, I pledge you my honour. Now
you know that’s infernal clever! Damme, you can’t help liking a man,
when you see these traits about him. He’s only one fault--that little
failing I mentioned to you, you know.’
As Mr. Smangle shook his head in a confidential and sympathising manner
at this juncture, Mr. Pickwick felt that he was expected to say
something, so he said, ‘Ah!’ and looked restlessly at the door.
‘Ah!’ echoed Mr. Smangle, with a long-drawn sigh. ‘He’s delightful
company, that man is, sir. I don’t know better company anywhere; but he
has that one drawback. If the ghost of his grandfather, Sir, was to rise
before him this minute, he’d ask him for the loan of his acceptance on
an eightpenny stamp.’
Dear me!’ exclaimed Mr. Pickwick.
‘Yes,’ added Mr. Smangle; ‘and if he’d the power of raising him again,
he would, in two months and three days from this time, to renew the
bill!’
‘Those are very remarkable traits,’ said Mr. Pickwick; ‘but I’m afraid
that while we are talking here, my friends may be in a state of great
perplexity at not finding me.’
‘I’ll show ‘em the way,’ said Smangle, making for the door. ‘Good-day. I
won’t disturb you while they’re here, you know. By the bye--’
As Smangle pronounced the last three words, he stopped suddenly,
reclosed the door which he had opened, and, walking softly back to Mr.
Pickwick, stepped close up to him on tiptoe, and said, in a very soft
whisper--
‘You couldn’t make it convenient to lend me half-a-crown till the latter
end of next week, could you?’
Mr. Pickwick could scarcely forbear smiling, but managing to preserve
his gravity, he drew forth the coin, and placed it in Mr. Smangle’s
palm; upon which, that gentleman, with many nods and winks, implying