The Pickwick Papers
proceeded to put himself into his clothes, and his clothes into his
portmanteau. Great men are seldom over scrupulous in the arrangement of
their attire; the operation of shaving, dressing, and coffee-imbibing
was soon performed; and, in another hour, Mr. Pickwick, with his
portmanteau in his hand, his telescope in his greatcoat pocket, and his
note-book in his waistcoat, ready for the reception of any discoveries
worthy of being noted down, had arrived at the coach-stand in St.
Martin’s-le-Grand.
‘Cab!’ said Mr. Pickwick.
‘Here you are, sir,’ shouted a strange specimen of the human race, in a
sackcloth coat, and apron of the same, who, with a brass label and
number round his neck, looked as if he were catalogued in some
collection of rarities. This was the waterman. ‘Here you are, sir. Now,
then, fust cab!’ And the first cab having been fetched from the public-
house, where he had been smoking his first pipe, Mr. Pickwick and his
portmanteau were thrown into the vehicle.
‘Golden Cross,’ said Mr. Pickwick.
‘Only a bob’s vorth, Tommy,’ cried the driver sulkily, for the
information of his friend the waterman, as the cab drove off.
‘How old is that horse, my friend?’ inquired Mr. Pickwick, rubbing his
nose with the shilling he had reserved for the fare.
‘Forty-two,’ replied the driver, eyeing him askant.
‘What!’ ejaculated Mr. Pickwick, laying his hand upon his note-book. The
driver reiterated his former statement. Mr. Pickwick looked very hard at
the man’s face, but his features were immovable, so he noted down the
fact forthwith.
‘And how long do you keep him out at a time?’ inquired Mr. Pickwick,
searching for further information.
‘Two or three veeks,’ replied the man.
‘Weeks!’ said Mr. Pickwick in astonishment, and out came the note-book
again.
‘He lives at Pentonwil when he’s at home,’ observed the driver coolly,
‘but we seldom takes him home, on account of his weakness.’
‘On account of his weakness!’ reiterated the perplexed Mr. Pickwick.
‘He always falls down when he’s took out o’ the cab,’ continued the
driver, ‘but when he’s in it, we bears him up werry tight, and takes him
in werry short, so as he can’t werry well fall down; and we’ve got a
pair o’ precious large wheels on, so ven he does move, they run after
him, and he must go on--he can’t help it.’
Mr. Pickwick entered every word of this statement in his note-book, with
the view of communicating it to the club, as a singular instance of the
tenacity of life in horses under trying circumstances. The entry was
scarcely completed when they reached the Golden Cross. Down jumped the
driver, and out got Mr. Pickwick. Mr. Tupman, Mr. Snodgrass, and Mr.
Winkle, who had been anxiously waiting the arrival of their illustrious
leader, crowded to welcome him.
‘Here’s your fare,’ said Mr. Pickwick, holding out the shilling to the
driver.
What was the learned man’s astonishment, when that unaccountable person
flung the money on the pavement, and requested in figurative terms to be
allowed the pleasure of fighting him (Mr. Pickwick) for the amount!
‘You are mad,’ said Mr. Snodgrass.
‘Or drunk,’ said Mr. Winkle.
‘Or both,’ said Mr. Tupman.
‘Come on!’ said the cab-driver, sparring away like clockwork. ‘Come on--
all four on you.’
‘Here’s a lark!’ shouted half a dozen hackney coachmen. ‘Go to vork,
Sam!--and they crowded with great glee round the party.
‘What’s the row, Sam?’ inquired one gentleman in black calico sleeves.
‘Row!’ replied the cabman, ‘what did he want my number for?’
‘I didn’t want your number,’ said the astonished Mr. Pickwick.
‘What did you take it for, then?’ inquired the cabman.
‘I didn’t take it,’ said Mr. Pickwick indignantly.
‘Would anybody believe,’ continued the cab-driver, appealing to the
crowd, ‘would anybody believe as an informer’ud go about in a man’s cab,
not only takin’ down his number, but ev’ry word he says into the
bargain’ (a light flashed upon Mr. Pickwick--it was the note-book).
‘Did he though?’ inquired another cabman.
‘Yes, did he,’ replied the first; ‘and then arter aggerawatin’ me to
assault him, gets three witnesses here to prove it. But I’ll give it
him, if I’ve six months for it. Come on!’ and the cabman dashed his hat
upon the ground, with a reckless disregard of his own private property,
and knocked Mr. Pickwick’s spectacles off, and followed up the attack
with a blow on Mr. Pickwick’s nose, and another on Mr. Pickwick’s chest,
and a third in Mr. Snodgrass’s eye, and a fourth, by way of variety, in
Mr. Tupman’s waistcoat, and then danced into the road, and then back
again to the pavement, and finally dashed the whole temporary supply of
breath out of Mr. Winkle’s body; and all in half a dozen seconds.
‘Where’s an officer?’ said Mr. Snodgrass.
‘Put ‘em under the pump,’ suggested a hot-pieman.
‘You shall smart for this,’ gasped Mr. Pickwick.
‘Informers!’ shouted the crowd.
‘Come on,’ cried the cabman, who had been sparring without cessation the
whole time.
The mob hitherto had been passive spectators of the scene, but as the
intelligence of the Pickwickians being informers was spread among them,
they began to canvass with considerable vivacity the propriety of
enforcing the heated pastry-vendor’s proposition: and there is no saying
what acts of personal aggression they might have committed, had not the
affray been unexpectedly terminated by the interposition of a new-comer.
‘What’s the fun?’ said a rather tall, thin, young man, in a green coat,
emerging suddenly from the coach-yard.
‘Informers!’ shouted the crowd again.
‘We are not,’ roared Mr. Pickwick, in a tone which, to any dispassionate
listener, carried conviction with it.
‘Ain’t you, though--ain’t you?’ said the young man, appealing to Mr.
Pickwick, and making his way through the crowd by the infallible process
of elbowing the countenances of its component members.
That learned man in a few hurried words explained the real state of the
case.
‘Come along, then,’ said he of the green coat, lugging Mr. Pickwick
after him by main force, and talking the whole way. Here, No. 924, take
your fare, and take yourself off--respectable gentleman--know him well--
none of your nonsense--this way, sir--where’s your friends?--all a
mistake, I see--never mind--accidents will happen--best regulated
families--never say die--down upon your luck--Pull him _up_--Put that in
his pipe--like the flavour--damned rascals.’ And with a lengthened
string of similar broken sentences, delivered with extraordinary
volubility, the stranger led the way to the traveller’s waiting-room,
whither he was closely followed by Mr. Pickwick and his disciples.
‘Here, waiter!’ shouted the stranger, ringing the bell with tremendous
violence, ‘glasses round--brandy-and-water, hot and strong, and sweet,
and plenty,--eye damaged, Sir? Waiter! raw beef-steak for the
gentleman’s eye--nothing like raw beef-steak for a bruise, sir; cold
lamp-post very good, but lamp-post inconvenient--damned odd standing in
the open street half an hour, with your eye against a lamp-post--eh,--
very good--ha! ha!’ And the stranger, without stopping to take breath,
swallowed at a draught full half a pint of the reeking brandy-and-water,
and flung himself into a chair with as much ease as if nothing uncommon
had occurred.
While his three companions were busily engaged in proffering their
thanks to their new acquaintance, Mr. Pickwick had leisure to examine
his costume and appearance.
He was about the middle height, but the thinness of his body, and the
length of his legs, gave him the appearance of being much taller. The
green coat had been a smart dress garment in the days of swallow-tails,
but had evidently in those times adorned a much shorter man than the
stranger, for the soiled and faded sleeves scarcely reached to his
wrists. It was buttoned closely up to his chin, at the imminent hazard
of splitting the back; and an old stock, without a vestige of shirt
collar, ornamented his neck. His scanty black trousers displayed here
and there those shiny patches which bespeak long service, and were
strapped very tightly over a pair of patched and mended shoes, as if to
conceal the dirty white stockings, which were nevertheless distinctly
visible. His long, black hair escaped in negligent waves from beneath
each side of his old pinched-up hat; and glimpses of his bare wrists
might be observed between the tops of his gloves and the cuffs of his
coat sleeves. His face was thin and haggard; but an indescribable air of
jaunty impudence and perfect self-possession pervaded the whole man.
Such was the individual on whom Mr. Pickwick gazed through his
spectacles (which he had fortunately recovered), and to whom he
proceeded, when his friends had exhausted themselves, to return in
chosen terms his warmest thanks for his recent assistance.
‘Never mind,’ said the stranger, cutting the address very short, ‘said
enough--no more; smart chap that cabman--handled his fives well; but if
I’d been your friend in the green jemmy--damn me--punch his head,--‘cod
I would,--pig’s whisper--pieman too,--no gammon.’
This coherent speech was interrupted by the entrance of the Rochester
coachman, to announce that ‘the Commodore’ was on the point of starting.
‘Commodore!’ said the stranger, starting up, ‘my coach--place booked,--
one outside--leave you to pay for the brandy-and-water,--want change for
a five,--bad silver--Brummagem buttons--won’t do--no go--eh?’ and he
shook his head most knowingly.
Now it so happened that Mr. Pickwick and his three companions had
resolved to make Rochester their first halting-place too; and having
intimated to their new-found acquaintance that they were journeying to
the same city, they agreed to occupy the seat at the back of the coach,
where they could all sit together.
‘Up with you,’ said the stranger, assisting Mr. Pickwick on to the roof
with so much precipitation as to impair the gravity of that gentleman’s
deportment very materially.
‘Any luggage, Sir?’ inquired the coachman.
‘Who--I? Brown paper parcel here, that’s all--other luggage gone by
water--packing-cases, nailed up--big as houses--heavy, heavy, damned
heavy,’ replied the stranger, as he forced into his pocket as much as he
could of the brown paper parcel, which presented most suspicious
indications of containing one shirt and a handkerchief.
‘Heads, heads--take care of your heads!’ cried the loquacious stranger,
as they came out under the low archway, which in those days formed the
entrance to the coach-yard. ‘Terrible place--dangerous work--other day--
five children--mother--tall lady, eating sandwiches--forgot the arch--
crash--knock--children look round--mother’s head off--sandwich in her
hand--no mouth to put it in--head of a family off--shocking, shocking!
Looking at Whitehall, sir?--fine place--little window--somebody else’s
head off there, eh, sir?--he didn’t keep a sharp look-out enough either-
-eh, Sir, eh?’
‘I am ruminating,’ said Mr. Pickwick, ‘on the strange mutability of
human affairs.’
‘Ah! I see--in at the palace door one day, out at the window the next.
Philosopher, Sir?’
‘An observer of human nature, Sir,’ said Mr. Pickwick.
‘Ah, so am I. Most people are when they’ve little to do and less to get.
Poet, Sir?’
‘My friend Mr. Snodgrass has a strong poetic turn,’ said Mr. Pickwick.
‘So have I,’ said the stranger. ‘Epic poem--ten thousand lines--
revolution of July--composed it on the spot--Mars by day, Apollo by
night--bang the field-piece, twang the lyre.’
‘You were present at that glorious scene, sir?’ said Mr. Snodgrass.
‘Present! think I was;* fired a musket--fired with an idea--rushed into
wine shop--wrote it down--back again--whiz, bang--another idea--wine