The Pickwick Papers
An anxious quarter of a hour elapsed; the jury came back; the judge was
fetched in. Mr. Pickwick put on his spectacles, and gazed at the foreman
with an agitated countenance and a quickly-beating heart.
‘Gentlemen,’ said the individual in black, ‘are you all agreed upon your
verdict?’
‘We are,’ replied the foreman.
‘Do you find for the plaintiff, gentlemen, or for the defendant?’
For the plaintiff.’
‘With what damages, gentlemen?’
‘Seven hundred and fifty pounds.’
Mr. Pickwick took off his spectacles, carefully wiped the glasses,
folded them into their case, and put them in his pocket; then, having
drawn on his gloves with great nicety, and stared at the foreman all the
while, he mechanically followed Mr. Perker and the blue bag out of
court.
They stopped in a side room while Perker paid the court fees; and here,
Mr. Pickwick was joined by his friends. Here, too, he encountered
Messrs. Dodson & Fogg, rubbing their hands with every token of outward
satisfaction.
‘Well, gentlemen,’ said Mr. Pickwick.
‘Well, Sir,’ said Dodson, for self and partner.
‘You imagine you’ll get your costs, don’t you, gentlemen?’ said Mr.
Pickwick.
Fogg said they thought it rather probable. Dodson smiled, and said
they’d try.
‘You may try, and try, and try again, Messrs. Dodson and Fogg,’ said Mr.
Pickwick vehemently, ‘but not one farthing of costs or damages do you
ever get from me, if I spend the rest of my existence in a debtor’s
prison.’
‘Ha! ha!’ laughed Dodson. ‘You’ll think better of that, before next
term, Mr. Pickwick.’
‘He, he, he! We’ll soon see about that, Mr. Pickwick,’ grinned Fogg.
Speechless with indignation, Mr. Pickwick allowed himself to be led by
his solicitor and friends to the door, and there assisted into a
hackney-coach, which had been fetched for the purpose, by the ever-
watchful Sam Weller.
Sam had put up the steps, and was preparing to jump upon the box, when
he felt himself gently touched on the shoulder; and, looking round, his
father stood before him. The old gentleman’s countenance wore a mournful
expression, as he shook his head gravely, and said, in warning accents--
‘I know’d what ‘ud come o’ this here mode o’ doin’ bisness. Oh, Sammy,
Sammy, vy worn’t there a alleybi!’
CHAPTER XXXV. IN WHICH MR. PICKWICK THINKS HE HAD BETTER GO TO BATH; AND
GOES ACCORDINGLY
But surely, my dear sir,’ said little Perker, as he stood in Mr.
Pickwick’s apartment on the morning after the trial, ‘surely you don’t
really mean--really and seriously now, and irritation apart--that you
won’t pay these costs and damages?’
‘Not one halfpenny,’ said Mr. Pickwick firmly; ‘not one halfpenny.’
‘Hooroar for the principle, as the money-lender said ven he vouldn’t
renew the bill,’ observed Mr. Weller, who was clearing away the
breakfast-things.
‘Sam,’ said Mr. Pickwick, ‘have the goodness to step downstairs.’
‘Cert’nly, sir,’ replied Mr. Weller; and acting on Mr. Pickwick’s gentle
hint, Sam retired.
‘No, Perker,’ said Mr. Pickwick, with great seriousness of manner, ‘my
friends here have endeavoured to dissuade me from this determination,
but without avail. I shall employ myself as usual, until the opposite
party have the power of issuing a legal process of execution against me;
and if they are vile enough to avail themselves of it, and to arrest my
person, I shall yield myself up with perfect cheerfulness and content of
heart. When can they do this?’
‘They can issue execution, my dear Sir, for the amount of the damages
and taxed costs, next term,’ replied Perker, ‘just two months hence, my
dear sir.’
‘Very good,’ said Mr. Pickwick. ‘Until that time, my dear fellow, let me
hear no more of the matter. And now,’ continued Mr. Pickwick, looking
round on his friends with a good-humoured smile, and a sparkle in the
eye which no spectacles could dim or conceal, ‘the only question is,
Where shall we go next?’
Mr. Tupman and Mr. Snodgrass were too much affected by their friend’s
heroism to offer any reply. Mr. Winkle had not yet sufficiently
recovered the recollection of his evidence at the trial, to make any
observation on any subject, so Mr. Pickwick paused in vain.
‘Well,’ said that gentleman, ‘if you leave me to suggest our
destination, I say Bath. I think none of us have ever been there.’
Nobody had; and as the proposition was warmly seconded by Perker, who
considered it extremely probable that if Mr. Pickwick saw a little
change and gaiety he would be inclined to think better of his
determination, and worse of a debtor’s prison, it was carried
unanimously; and Sam was at once despatched to the White Horse Cellar,
to take five places by the half-past seven o’clock coach, next morning.
There were just two places to be had inside, and just three to be had
out; so Sam Weller booked for them all, and having exchanged a few
compliments with the booking-office clerk on the subject of a pewter
half-crown which was tendered him as a portion of his ‘change,’ walked
back to the George and Vulture, where he was pretty busily employed
until bed-time in reducing clothes and linen into the smallest possible
compass, and exerting his mechanical genius in constructing a variety of
ingenious devices for keeping the lids on boxes which had neither locks
nor hinges.
The next was a very unpropitious morning for a journey--muggy, damp, and
drizzly. The horses in the stages that were going out, and had come
through the city, were smoking so, that the outside passengers were
invisible. The newspaper-sellers looked moist, and smelled mouldy; the
wet ran off the hats of the orange-vendors as they thrust their heads
into the coach windows, and diluted the insides in a refreshing manner.
The Jews with the fifty-bladed penknives shut them up in despair; the
men with the pocket-books made pocket-books of them. Watch-guards and
toasting-forks were alike at a discount, and pencil-cases and sponges
were a drug in the market.
Leaving Sam Weller to rescue the luggage from the seven or eight porters
who flung themselves savagely upon it, the moment the coach stopped, and
finding that they were about twenty minutes too early, Mr. Pickwick and
his friends went for shelter into the travellers’ room--the last
resource of human dejection.
The travellers’ room at the White Horse Cellar is of course
uncomfortable; it would be no travellers’ room if it were not. It is the
right-hand parlour, into which an aspiring kitchen fireplace appears to
have walked, accompanied by a rebellious poker, tongs, and shovel. It is
divided into boxes, for the solitary confinement of travellers, and is
furnished with a clock, a looking-glass, and a live waiter, which latter
article is kept in a small kennel for washing glasses, in a corner of
the apartment.
One of these boxes was occupied, on this particular occasion, by a
stern-eyed man of about five-and-forty, who had a bald and glossy
forehead, with a good deal of black hair at the sides and back of his
head, and large black whiskers. He was buttoned up to the chin in a
brown coat; and had a large sealskin travelling-cap, and a greatcoat and
cloak, lying on the seat beside him. He looked up from his breakfast as
Mr. Pickwick entered, with a fierce and peremptory air, which was very
dignified; and, having scrutinised that gentleman and his companions to
his entire satisfaction, hummed a tune, in a manner which seemed to say
that he rather suspected somebody wanted to take advantage of him, but
it wouldn’t do.
‘Waiter,’ said the gentleman with the whiskers.
‘Sir?’ replied a man with a dirty complexion, and a towel of the same,
emerging from the kennel before mentioned.
‘Some more toast.’
‘Yes, sir.’
‘Buttered toast, mind,’ said the gentleman fiercely.
‘Directly, sir,’ replied the waiter.
The gentleman with the whiskers hummed a tune in the same manner as
before, and pending the arrival of the toast, advanced to the front of
the fire, and, taking his coat tails under his arms, looked at his boots
and ruminated.
‘I wonder whereabouts in Bath this coach puts up,’ said Mr. Pickwick,
mildly addressing Mr. Winkle.
‘Hum--eh--what’s that?’ said the strange man.
‘I made an observation to my friend, sir,’ replied Mr. Pickwick, always
ready to enter into conversation. ‘I wondered at what house the Bath
coach put up. Perhaps you can inform me.’
Are you going to Bath?’ said the strange man.
‘I am, sir,’ replied Mr. Pickwick.
‘And those other gentlemen?’
‘They are going also,’ said Mr. Pickwick.
‘Not inside--I’ll be damned if you’re going inside,’ said the strange
man.
‘Not all of us,’ said Mr. Pickwick.
‘No, not all of you,’ said the strange man emphatically. ‘I’ve taken two
places. If they try to squeeze six people into an infernal box that only
holds four, I’ll take a post-chaise and bring an action. I’ve paid my
fare. It won’t do; I told the clerk when I took my places that it
wouldn’t do. I know these things have been done. I know they are done
every day; but I never was done, and I never will be. Those who know me
best, best know it; crush me!’ Here the fierce gentleman rang the bell
with great violence, and told the waiter he’d better bring the toast in
five seconds, or he’d know the reason why.
‘My good sir,’ said Mr. Pickwick, ‘you will allow me to observe that
this is a very unnecessary display of excitement. I have only taken
places inside for two.’
‘I am glad to hear it,’ said the fierce man. ‘I withdraw my expressions.
I tender an apology. There’s my card. Give me your acquaintance.’
‘With great pleasure, Sir,’ replied Mr. Pickwick. ‘We are to be fellow-
travellers, and I hope we shall find each other’s society mutually
agreeable.’
‘I hope we shall,’ said the fierce gentleman. ‘I know we shall. I like
your looks; they please me. Gentlemen, your hands and names. Know me.’
Of course, an interchange of friendly salutations followed this gracious
speech; and the fierce gentleman immediately proceeded to inform the
friends, in the same short, abrupt, jerking sentences, that his name was
Dowler; that he was going to Bath on pleasure; that he was formerly in
the army; that he had now set up in business as a gentleman; that he
lived upon the profits; and that the individual for whom the second
place was taken, was a personage no less illustrious than Mrs. Dowler,
his lady wife.
‘She’s a fine woman,’ said Mr. Dowler. ‘I am proud of her. I have
reason.’
‘I hope I shall have the pleasure of judging,’ said Mr. Pickwick, with a
smile.
‘You shall,’ replied Dowler. ‘She shall know you. She shall esteem you.
I courted her under singular circumstances. I won her through a rash
vow. Thus. I saw her; I loved her; I proposed; she refused me.--“You
love another?”--“Spare my blushes.”--“I know him.”--“You do.”--“Very
good; if he remains here, I’ll skin him.”’
‘Lord bless me!’ exclaimed Mr. Pickwick involuntarily.
‘Did you skin the gentleman, Sir?’ inquired Mr. Winkle, with a very pale
face.
‘I wrote him a note, I said it was a painful thing. And so it was.’
‘Certainly,’ interposed Mr. Winkle.
‘I said I had pledged my word as a gentleman to skin him. My character
was at stake. I had no alternative. As an officer in His Majesty’s
service, I was bound to skin him. I regretted the necessity, but it must
be done. He was open to conviction. He saw that the rules of the service
were imperative. He fled. I married her. Here’s the coach. That’s her
head.’
As Mr. Dowler concluded, he pointed to a stage which had just driven up,
from the open window of which a rather pretty face in a bright blue
bonnet was looking among the crowd on the pavement, most probably for
the rash man himself. Mr. Dowler paid his bill, and hurried out with his
travelling cap, coat, and cloak; and Mr. Pickwick and his friends