'He's a devilish pleasant gentlemanly dog,' said Mr. Smangle;--'infernal pleasant. I don't know anybody more so; but--'Here Mr. Smangle stopped short, and shook his head dubiously.

'You don't think there is any probability of his appropriatingthe money to his own use?' said Mr. Pickwick.

'Oh, no! Mind, I don't say that; I expressly say that he's adevilish gentlemanly fellow,' said Mr. Smangle. 'But I think,perhaps, if somebody went down, just to see that he didn't diphis beak into the jug by accident, or make some confoundedmistake in losing the money as he came upstairs, it would be aswell. Here, you sir, just run downstairs, and look after thatgentleman, will you?'

This request was addressed to a little timid-looking, nervousman, whose appearance bespoke great poverty, and who hadbeen crouching on his bedstead all this while, apparentlystupefied by the novelty of his situation.

'You know where the coffee-room is,' said Smangle; 'just rundown, and tell that gentleman you've come to help him up withthe jug. Or--stop--I'll tell you what--I'll tell you how we'll dohim,' said Smangle, with a cunning look.

'How?' said Mr. Pickwick.

'Send down word that he's to spend the change in cigars.Capital thought. Run and tell him that; d'ye hear? They shan'tbe wasted,' continued Smangle, turning to Mr. Pickwick. 'I'LLsmoke 'em.'

This manoeuvring was so exceedingly ingenious and, withal,performed with such immovable composure and coolness, thatMr. Pickwick would have had no wish to disturb it, even if he hadhad the power. In a short time Mr. Mivins returned, bearing thesherry, which Mr. Smangle dispensed in two little cracked mugs;considerately remarking, with reference to himself, that agentleman must not be particular under such circumstances, andthat, for his part, he was not too proud to drink out of the jug.In which, to show his sincerity, he forthwith pledged the companyin a draught which half emptied it.

An excellent understanding having been by these meanspromoted, Mr. Smangle proceeded to entertain his hearers witha relation of divers romantic adventures in which he had beenfrom time to time engaged, involving various interesting anecdotesof a thoroughbred horse, and a magnificent Jewess, both ofsurpassing beauty, and much coveted by the nobility and gentryof these kingdoms.

Long before these elegant extracts from the biography of agentleman were concluded, Mr. Mivins had betaken himself tobed, and had set in snoring for the night, leaving the timidstranger and Mr. Pickwick to the full benefit of Mr. Smangle'sexperiences.

Nor were the two last-named gentlemen as much edified asthey might have been by the moving passages narrated. Mr.Pickwick had been in a state of slumber for some time, when hehad a faint perception of the drunken man bursting out afreshwith the comic song, and receiving from Mr. Smangle a gentleintimation, through the medium of the water-jug, that hisaudience was not musically disposed. Mr. Pickwick then onceagain dropped off to sleep, with a confused consciousness thatMr. Smangle was still engaged in relating a long story, the chiefpoint of which appeared to be that, on some occasion particularlystated and set forth, he had 'done' a bill and a gentleman at thesame time.

CHAPTER XLIIILLUSTRATIVE, LIKE THE PRECEDING ONE, OF THE OLDPROVERB, THAT ADVERSITY BRINGS A MAN ACQUAINTEDWITH STRANGE BEDFELLOWS--LIKEWISE CONTAINING Mr.PICKWICK'S EXTRAORDINARY AND STARTLING ANNOUNCEMENTTO Mr. SAMUEL WELLER

When Mr. Pickwick opened his eyes next morning, the first objectupon which they rested was Samuel Weller, seated upon a smallblack portmanteau, intently regarding, apparently in a conditionof profound abstraction, the stately figure of the dashing Mr.Smangle; while Mr. Smangle himself, who was already partiallydressed, was seated on his bedstead, occupied in the desperatelyhopeless attempt of staring Mr. Weller out of countenance. Wesay desperately hopeless, because Sam, with a comprehensive gazewhich took in Mr. Smangle's cap, feet, head, face, legs, andwhiskers, all at the same time, continued to look steadily on,with every demonstration of lively satisfaction, but with nomore regard to Mr. Smangle's personal sentiments on the subjectthan he would have displayed had he been inspecting a woodenstatue, 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 wen hewakes, I'll be upon the wery best extra-super behaviour!' Thisobservation, 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 thebed-clothes, 'I ought to ask YOU that. Hasn't he any business here?'

'No,' replied Mr. Smangle.'Then knock him downstairs, and tell him not to presume toget up till I come and kick him,' rejoined Mr. Mivins; with thisprompt advice that excellent gentleman again betook himself to slumber.

The conversation exhibiting these unequivocal symptoms ofverging on the personal, Mr. Pickwick deemed it a fit point atwhich 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'swhiskers; 'the late prewailance of a close and confined atmospherehas been rayther favourable to the growth of veeds, of analarmin' and sangvinary natur; but vith that 'ere exceptionthings 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 unpackingof the portmanteau; the contents of which appeared to impresshim at once with a most favourable opinion, not only of Mr.Pickwick, but of Sam also, who, he took an early opportunityof declaring in a tone of voice loud enough for that eccentricpersonage to overhear, was a regular thoroughbred original,and consequently the very man after his own heart. Asto 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,' repliedMr. Pickwick.

'No linen that you want sent to the washerwoman's? I know adelightful washerwoman outside, that comes for my things twicea week; and, by Jove!--how devilish lucky!--this is the day shecalls. Shall I put any of those little things up with mine? Don'tsay anything about the trouble. Confound and curse it! if onegentleman under a cloud is not to put himself a little out of theway to assist another gentleman in the same condition, what'shuman nature?'

Thus spake Mr. Smangle, edging himself meanwhile as near aspossible to the portmanteau, and beaming forth looks of themost 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 thereply into his own mouth. 'P'raps if vun of us wos to brush,without troubling the man, it 'ud be more agreeable for allparties, as the schoolmaster said when the young gentlemanobjected to being flogged by the butler.'

'And there's nothing I can send in my little box to the washer-woman's, is there?' said Smangle, turning from Sam to Mr.Pickwick, with an air of some discomfiture.

'Nothin' whatever, Sir,' retorted Sam; 'I'm afeered the littlebox must be chock full o' your own as it is.'

This speech was accompanied with such a very expressive lookat that particular portion of Mr. Smangle's attire, by the appearanceof which the skill of laundresses in getting up gentlemen'slinen 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 indudgeon to the racket-ground, where he made a light and whole-some breakfast on a couple of the cigars which had been purchasedon the previous night.Mr. Mivins, who was no smoker, and whose account for smallarticles of chandlery had also reached down to the bottom of theslate, 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 temporaryinmate of which, in consideration of a small additionalcharge, had the unspeakable advantage of overhearing all theconversation in the coffee-room aforesaid; and, after despatchingMr. Weller on some necessary errands, Mr. Pickwick repaired tothe lodge, to consult Mr. Roker concerning his future accommodation.

'Accommodation, eh?' said that gentleman, consulting a largebook. 'Plenty of that, Mr. Pickwick. Your chummage ticket willbe on twenty-seven, in the third.'

'Oh,' said Mr. Pickwick. 'My what, did you say?'

'Your chummage ticket,' replied Mr. Roker; 'you're up tothat?'

'Not quite,' replied Mr. Pickwick, with a smile.

'Why,' said Mr. Roker, 'it's as plain as Salisbury. You'll havea chummage ticket upon twenty-seven in the third, and them asis 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 pieceof paper as he spoke; 'another's a butcher.'

'Eh?' exclaimed Mr. Pickwick.

'A butcher,' repeated Mr. Roker, giving the nib of his pen atap on the desk to cure it of a disinclination to mark. 'What athorough-paced goer he used to be sure-ly! You remember TomMartin, Neddy?' said Roker, appealing to another man in thelodge, 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 strongemphasis on the personal pronoun.

'Bless my dear eyes!' said Mr. Roker, shaking his head slowlyfrom side to side, and gazing abstractedly out of the gratedwindows before him, as if he were fondly recalling some peacefulscene of his early youth; 'it seems but yesterday that he whoppedthe coal-heaver down Fox-under-the-Hill by the wharf there.I think I can see him now, a-coming up the Strand betweenthe two street-keepers, a little sobered by the bruising, witha patch o' winegar and brown paper over his right eyelid, andthat '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 echoedthe inquiry; Mr. Roker, shaking off the poetical and gloomytrain of thought into which he had been betrayed, descended tothe common business of life, and resumed his pen.

'Do you know what the third gentlemen is?' inquired Mr.Pickwick, not very much gratified by this description of hisfuture associates.

'What is that Simpson, Neddy?' said Mr. Roker, turning to hiscompanion.

'What Simpson?' said Neddy.

'Why, him in twenty-seven in the third, that this gentleman'sgoing to be chummed on.'

'Oh, him!' replied Neddy; 'he's nothing exactly. He WAS ahorse chaunter: he's a leg now.'

'Ah, so I thought,' rejoined Mr. Roker, closing the book, andplacing the small piece of paper in Mr. Pickwick's hands. 'That'sthe ticket, sir.'

Very much perplexed by this summary disposition of thisperson, Mr. Pickwick walked back into the prison, revolving inhis mind what he had better do. Convinced, however, that beforehe took any other steps it would be advisable to see, and holdpersonal converse with, the three gentlemen with whom it wasproposed to quarter him, he made the best of his way to the third flight.

After groping about in the gallery for some time, attempting inthe dim light to decipher the numbers on the different doors, heat length appealed to a pot-boy, who happened to be pursuinghis morning occupation of gleaning for pewter.

'Which is twenty-seven, my good fellow?' said Mr. Pickwick.

'Five doors farther on,' replied the pot-boy. 'There's thelikeness of a man being hung, and smoking the while, chalkedoutside the door.'

Guided by this direction, Mr. Pickwick proceeded slowly alongthe gallery until he encountered the 'portrait of a gentleman,'above described, upon whose countenance he tapped, with theknuckle of his forefinger--gently at first, and then audibly. Afterrepeating this process several times without effect, he ventured toopen the door and peep in.

There was only one man in the room, and he was leaning outof window as far as he could without overbalancing himself,endeavouring, with great perseverance, to spit upon the crownof the hat of a personal friend on the parade below. As neitherspeaking, coughing, sneezing, knocking, nor any other ordinarymode of attracting attention, made this person aware of thepresence of a visitor, Mr. Pickwick, after some delay, stepped upto the window, and pulled him gently by the coat tail. Theindividual brought in his head and shoulders with great swiftness,and surveying Mr. Pickwick from head to foot, demanded in asurly tone what the--something beginning with a capital H--he wanted.

'I believe,' said Mr. Pickwick, consulting his ticket--'I believethis is twenty-seven in the third?'

Title: The Pickwick Papers
Author: Charles Dickens
Viewed 262646 times

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