‘Bravo! Heel over toe – cut and shuffle – pay away at it, Zephyr! I’m smothered if the opera house isn’t your proper hemisphere. Keep it up! Hooray!’ These expressions, delivered in a most boisterous tone, and accompanied with loud peals of laughter, roused Mr. Pickwick from one of those sound slumbers which, lasting in reality some half-hour, seem to the sleeper to have been protracted for three weeks or a month.
The voice had no sooner ceased than the room was shaken with such violence that the windows rattled in their frames, and the bedsteads trembled again. Mr. Pickwick started up, and remained for some minutes fixed in mute astonishment at the scene before him.
On the floor of the room, a man in a broad-skirted green coat, with corduroy knee-smalls and gray cotton stockings, was performing the most popular steps of a hornpipe, with a slang and burlesque caricature of grace and lightness, which, combined with the very appropriate character of his costume, was inexpressibly absurd. Another man, evidently very drunk, who had probably been tumbled into bed by his companions, was sitting up between the sheets, warbling as much as he could recollect of a comic song, with the most intensely sentimental feeling and expression; while a third, seated on one of the bedsteads, was applauding both performers with the air of a profound connoisseur, and encouraging them by such ebullitions of feeling as had already roused Mr. Pickwick from his sleep.
This last man was an admirable specimen of a class of gentry which never can be seen in full perfection but in such places – they may be met with, in an imperfect state, occasionally about stable-yards and Public-houses; but they never attain their full bloom except in these hot-beds, which would almost seem to be considerately provided by the legislature for the sole purpose of rearing them.
He was a tall fellow, with an olive complexion, long dark hair, and very thick bushy whiskers meeting under his chin. He wore no neckerchief, as he had been playing rackets all day, and his open shirt collar displayed their full luxuriance. On his head he wore one of the common eighteenpenny French skull-caps, with a gaudy tassel dangling therefrom, very happily in keeping with a common fustian coat. His legs, which, being long, were afflicted with weakness, graced a pair of Oxford-mixture trousers, made to show the full symmetry of those limbs. Being somewhat negligently braced, however, and, moreover, but imperfectly buttoned, they fell in a series of not the most graceful folds over a pair of shoes sufficiently down at heel to display a pair of very soiled white stockings. There was a rakish, vagabond smartness, and a kind of boastful rascality, about the whole man, that was worth a mine of gold.
This figure was the first to perceive that Mr. Pickwick was looking on; upon which he winked to the Zephyr, and entreated him, with mock gravity, not to wake the gentleman.
‘Why, bless the gentleman’s honest heart and soul!’ said the Zephyr, turning round and affecting the extremity of surprise; ‘the gentleman is awake. Hem, Shakespeare! How do you do, Sir? How is Mary and Sarah, sir? and the dear old lady at home, Sir? Will you have the kindness to put my compliments into the first little parcel you’re sending that way, sir, and say that I would have sent ‘em before, only I was afraid they might be broken in the wagon, sir?’
‘Don’t overwhelm the gentlemen with ordinary civilities when you see he’s anxious to have something to drink,’ said the gentleman with the whiskers, with a jocose air. ‘Why don’t you ask the gentleman what he’ll take?’
‘Dear me, I quite forgot,’ replied the other. ‘What will you take, sir? Will you take port wine, sir, or sherry wine, sir? I can recommend the ale, sir; or perhaps you’d like to taste the porter, sir? Allow me to have the felicity of hanging up your nightcap, Sir.’
With this, the speaker snatched that article of dress from Mr. Pickwick’s head, and fixed it in a twinkling on that of the drunken man, who, firmly impressed with the belief that he was delighting a numerous assembly, continued to hammer away at the comic song in the most melancholy strains imaginable.
Taking a man’s nightcap from his brow by violent means, and adjusting it on the head of an unknown gentleman, of dirty exterior, however ingenious a witticism in itself, is unquestionably one of those which come under the denomination of practical jokes. Viewing the matter precisely in this light, Mr. Pickwick, without the slightest intimation of his purpose, sprang vigorously out of bed, struck the Zephyr so smart a blow in the chest as to deprive him of a considerable portion of the commodity which sometimes bears his name, and then, recapturing his nightcap, boldly placed himself in an attitude of defence.
‘Now,’ said Mr. Pickwick, gasping no less from excitement than from the expenditure of so much energy, ‘come on – both of you – both of you!’ With this liberal invitation the worthy gentleman communicated a revolving motion to his clenched fists, by way of appalling his antagonists with a display of science.
It might have been Mr. Pickwick’s very unexpected gallantry, or it might have been the complicated manner in which he had got himself out of bed, and fallen all in a mass upon the hornpipe man, that touched his adversaries. Touched they were; for, instead of then and there making an attempt to commit man-slaughter, as Mr. Pickwick implicitly believed they would have done, they paused, stared at each other a short time, and finally laughed outright.
‘Well, you’re a trump, and I like you all the better for it,’ said the Zephyr. ‘Now jump into bed again, or you’ll catch the rheumatics. No malice, I hope?’ said the man, extending a hand the size of the yellow clump of fingers which sometimes swings over a glover’s door.
‘Certainly not,’ said Mr. Pickwick, with great alacrity; for, now that the excitement was over, he began to feel rather cool about the legs.
‘Allow me the H-onour,’ said the gentleman with the whiskers, presenting his dexter hand, and aspirating the h.
‘With much pleasure, sir,’ said Mr. Pickwick; and having executed a very long and solemn shake, he got into bed again.
‘My name is Smangle, sir,’ said the man with the whiskers.
‘Oh,’ said Mr. Pickwick.
‘Mine is Mivins,’ said the man in the stockings.
‘I am delighted to hear it, sir,’ said Mr. Pickwick.
‘Hem,’ coughed Mr. Smangle.
‘Did you speak, sir?’ said Mr. Pickwick.
‘No, I did not, sir,’ said Mr. Smangle.
All this was very genteel and pleasant; and, to make matters still more comfortable, Mr. Smangle assured Mr. Pickwick a great many more times that he entertained a very high respect for the feelings of a gentleman; which sentiment, indeed, did him infinite credit, as he could be in no wise supposed to understand them.
‘Are you going through the court, sir?’ inquired Mr. Smangle.
‘Through the what?’ said Mr. Pickwick.
‘Through the court – Portugal Street – the Court for Relief of – you know.’
‘Oh, no,’ replied Mr. Pickwick. ‘No, I am not.’
‘Going out, perhaps?’ suggested Mr. Mivins.
‘I fear not,’ replied Mr. Pickwick. ‘I refuse to pay some damages, and am here in consequence.’
‘Ah,’ said Mr. Smangle, ‘paper has been my ruin.’
‘A stationer, I presume, Sir?’ said Mr. Pickwick innocently.
‘Stationer! No, no; confound and curse me! Not so low as that. No trade. When I say paper, I mean bills.’
‘Oh, you use the word in that sense. I see,’ said Mr. Pickwick.
‘Damme! A gentleman must expect reverses,’ said Smangle. ‘What of that? Here am I in the Fleet Prison. Well; good. What then? I’m none the worse for that, am I?’
‘Not a bit,’ replied Mr. Mivins. And he was quite right; for, so far from Mr. Smangle being any the worse for it, he was something the better, inasmuch as to qualify himself for the place, he had attained gratuitous possession of certain articles of jewellery, which, long before that, had found their way to the pawnbroker’s.
‘Well; but come,’ said Mr. Smangle; ‘this is dry work. Let’s rinse our mouths with a drop of burnt sherry; the last-comer shall stand it, Mivins shall fetch it, and I’ll help to drink it. That’s a fair and gentlemanlike division of labour, anyhow. Curse me!’
Unwilling to hazard another quarrel, Mr. Pickwick gladly assented to the proposition, and consigned the money to Mr. Mivins, who, as it was nearly eleven o’clock, lost no time in repairing to the coffee-room on his errand.
‘I say,’ whispered Smangle, the moment his friend had left the room; ‘what did you give him?’
‘Half a sovereign,’ said Mr. Pickwick.
‘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 appropriating the money to his own use?’ said Mr. Pickwick.
‘Oh, no! Mind, I don’t say that; I expressly say that he’s a devilish gentlemanly fellow,’ said Mr. Smangle. ‘But I think, perhaps, if somebody went down, just to see that he didn’t dip his beak into the jug by accident, or make some confounded mistake in losing the money as he came upstairs, it would be as well. Here, you sir, just run downstairs, and look after that gentleman, will you?’
This request was addressed to a little timid-looking, nervous man, whose appearance bespoke great poverty, and who had been crouching on his bedstead all this while, apparently stupefied by the novelty of his situation.
‘You know where the coffee-room is,’ said Smangle; ‘just run down, and tell that gentleman you’ve come to help him up with the jug. Or – stop – I’ll tell you what – I’ll tell you how we’ll do him,’ 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’t be wasted,’ continued Smangle, turning to Mr. Pickwick. ‘I’ll smoke ‘em.’
This manoeuvring was so exceedingly ingenious and, withal, performed with such immovable composure and coolness, that Mr. Pickwick would have had no wish to disturb it, even if he had had the power. In a short time Mr. Mivins returned, bearing the sherry, which Mr. Smangle dispensed in two little cracked mugs; considerately remarking, with reference to himself, that a gentleman must not be particular under such circumstances, and that, for his part, he was not too proud to drink out of the jug. In which, to show his sincerity, he forthwith pledged the company in a draught which half emptied it.
An excellent understanding having been by these means promoted, Mr. Smangle proceeded to entertain his hearers with a relation of divers romantic adventures in which he had been from time to time engaged, involving various interesting anecdotes of a thoroughbred horse, and a magnificent Jewess, both of surpassing beauty, and much coveted by the nobility and gentry of these kingdoms.
Long before these elegant extracts from the biography of a gentleman were concluded, Mr. Mivins had betaken himself to bed, and had set in snoring for the night, leaving the timid stranger and Mr. Pickwick to the full benefit of Mr. Smangle’s experiences.
Nor were the two last-named gentlemen as much edified as they might have been by the moving passages narrated. Mr. Pickwick had been in a state of slumber for some time, when he had a faint perception of the drunken man bursting out afresh with the comic song, and receiving from Mr. Smangle a gentle intimation, through the medium of the water-jug, that his audience was not musically disposed. Mr. Pickwick then once again dropped off to sleep, with a confused consciousness that Mr. Smangle was still engaged in relating a long story, the chief point of which appeared to be that, on some occasion particularly stated and set forth, he had ‘done’ a bill and a gentleman at the same time.
CHAPTER XLII. ILLUSTRATIVE, LIKE THE PRECEDING ONE, OF THE OLD PROVERB, THAT ADVERSITY BRINGS A MAN ACQUAINTED WITH STRANGE BEDFELLOWS – LIKEWISE CONTAINING MR. PICKWICK’S EXTRAORDINARY AND STARTLING ANNOUNCEMENT TO MR. SAMUEL WELLER
When Mr. Pickwick opened his eyes next morning, the first object upon which they rested was Samuel Weller, seated upon a small black portmanteau, intently regarding, apparently in a condition of profound abstraction, the stately figure of the dashing Mr. Smangle; while Mr. Smangle himself, who was already partially dressed, was seated on his bedstead, occupied in the desperately hopeless attempt of staring Mr. Weller out of countenance. We say desperately hopeless, because Sam, with a comprehensive gaze which took in Mr. Smangle’s cap, feet, head, face, legs, and whiskers, all at the same time, continued to look steadily on, with every demonstration of lively satisfaction, but with no more regard to Mr. Smangle’s personal sentiments on the subject than he would have displayed had he been inspecting a wooden statue, 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 he wakes, I’ll be upon the wery best extra-super behaviour!’ This observation, 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 the bed-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 to get up till I come and kick him,’ rejoined Mr. Mivins; with this prompt advice that excellent gentleman again betook himself to slumber.
The conversation exhibiting these unequivocal symptoms of verging on the personal, Mr. Pickwick deemed it a fit point at which 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’s whiskers; ‘the late prewailance of a close and confined atmosphere has been rayther favourable to the growth of veeds, of an alarmin’ and sangvinary natur; but vith that ‘ere exception things 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 unpacking of the portmanteau; the contents of which appeared to impress him at once with a most favourable opinion, not only of Mr. Pickwick, but of Sam also, who, he took an early opportunity of declaring in a tone of voice loud enough for that eccentric personage to overhear, was a regular thoroughbred original, and consequently the very man after his own heart. As to 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,’ replied Mr. Pickwick.
‘No linen that you want sent to the washerwoman’s? I know a delightful washerwoman outside, that comes for my things twice a week; and, by Jove! – how devilish lucky! – this is the day she calls. Shall I put any of those little things up with mine? Don’t say anything about the trouble. Confound and curse it! if one gentleman under a cloud is not to put himself a little out of the way to assist another gentleman in the same condition, what’s human nature?’
Thus spake Mr. Smangle, edging himself meanwhile as near as possible to the portmanteau, and beaming forth looks of the most 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 the reply into his own mouth. ‘P’raps if vun of us wos to brush, without troubling the man, it ‘ud be more agreeable for all parties, as the schoolmaster said when the young gentleman objected 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 little box must be chock full o’ your own as it is.’
This speech was accompanied with such a very expressive look at that particular portion of Mr. Smangle’s attire, by the appearance of which the skill of laundresses in getting up gentlemen’s linen 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 in dudgeon to the racket-ground, where he made a light and whole-some breakfast on a couple of the cigars which had been purchased on the previous night.
Mr. Mivins, who was no smoker, and whose account for small articles of chandlery had also reached down to the bottom of the slate, 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 temporary inmate of which, in consideration of a small additional charge, had the unspeakable advantage of overhearing all the conversation in the coffee-room aforesaid; and, after despatching Mr. Weller on some necessary errands, Mr. Pickwick repaired to the lodge, to consult Mr. Roker concerning his future accommodation.
‘Accommodation, eh?’ said that gentleman, consulting a large book. ‘Plenty of that, Mr. Pickwick. Your chummage ticket will be on twenty-seven, in the third.’
‘Oh,’ said Mr. Pickwick. ‘My what, did you say?’
‘Your chummage ticket,’ replied Mr. Roker; ‘you’re up to that?’
‘Not quite,’ replied Mr. Pickwick, with a smile.
‘Why,’ said Mr. Roker, ‘it’s as plain as Salisbury. You’ll have a chummage ticket upon twenty-seven in the third, and them as is 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 piece of paper as he spoke; ‘another’s a butcher.’
‘Eh?’ exclaimed Mr. Pickwick.
‘A butcher,’ repeated Mr. Roker, giving the nib of his pen a tap on the desk to cure it of a disinclination to mark. ‘What a thorough-paced goer he used to be sure-ly! You remember Tom Martin, Neddy?’ said Roker, appealing to another man in the lodge, 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 strong emphasis on the personal pronoun.
‘Bless my dear eyes!’ said Mr. Roker, shaking his head slowly from side to side, and gazing abstractedly out of the grated windows before him, as if he were fondly recalling some peaceful scene of his early youth; ‘it seems but yesterday that he whopped the coal-heaver down Fox-under-the-Hill by the wharf there. I think I can see him now, a-coming up the Strand between the two street-keepers, a little sobered by the bruising, with a patch o’ winegar and brown paper over his right eyelid, and that ‘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 echoed the inquiry; Mr. Roker, shaking off the poetical and gloomy train of thought into which he had been betrayed, descended to the 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 his future associates.
‘What is that Simpson, Neddy?’ said Mr. Roker, turning to his companion.
‘What Simpson?’ said Neddy.
‘Why, him in twenty-seven in the third, that this gentleman’s going to be chummed on.’
‘Oh, him!’ replied Neddy; ‘he’s nothing exactly. He was a horse chaunter: he’s a leg now.’
‘Ah, so I thought,’ rejoined Mr. Roker, closing the book, and placing the small piece of paper in Mr. Pickwick’s hands. ‘That’s the ticket, sir.’
Very much perplexed by this summary disposition of this person, Mr. Pickwick walked back into the prison, revolving in his mind what he had better do. Convinced, however, that before he took any other steps it would be advisable to see, and hold personal converse with, the three gentlemen with whom it was proposed to quarter him, he made the best of his way to the third flight.
After groping about in the gallery for some time, attempting in the dim light to decipher the numbers on the different doors, he at length appealed to a pot-boy, who happened to be pursuing his 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 the likeness of a man being hung, and smoking the while, chalked outside the door.’
Guided by this direction, Mr. Pickwick proceeded slowly along the gallery until he encountered the ‘portrait of a gentleman,’ above described, upon whose countenance he tapped, with the knuckle of his forefinger – gently at first, and then audibly. After repeating this process several times without effect, he ventured to open the door and peep in.
There was only one man in the room, and he was leaning out of window as far as he could without overbalancing himself, endeavouring, with great perseverance, to spit upon the crown of the hat of a personal friend on the parade below. As neither speaking, coughing, sneezing, knocking, nor any other ordinary mode of attracting attention, made this person aware of the presence of a visitor, Mr. Pickwick, after some delay, stepped up to the window, and pulled him gently by the coat tail. The individual brought in his head and shoulders with great swiftness, and surveying Mr. Pickwick from head to foot, demanded in a surly tone what the – something beginning with a capital H – he wanted.
‘I believe,’ said Mr. Pickwick, consulting his ticket – ‘I believe this is twenty-seven in the third?’
‘Well?’ replied the gentleman.
‘I have come here in consequence of receiving this bit of paper,’ rejoined Mr. Pickwick.
‘Hand it over,’ said the gentleman.
Mr. Pickwick complied.
‘I think Roker might have chummed you somewhere else,’ said Mr. Simpson (for it was the leg), after a very discontented sort of a pause.
Mr. Pickwick thought so also; but, under all the circumstances, he considered it a matter of sound policy to be silent.
Mr. Simpson mused for a few moments after this, and then, thrusting his head out of the window, gave a shrill whistle, and pronounced some word aloud, several times. What the word was, Mr. Pickwick could not distinguish; but he rather inferred that it must be some nickname which distinguished Mr. Martin, from the fact of a great number of gentlemen on the ground below, immediately proceeding to cry ‘Butcher!’ in imitation of the tone in which that useful class of society are wont, diurnally, to make their presence known at area railings.
Subsequent occurrences confirmed the accuracy of Mr. Pickwick’s impression; for, in a few seconds, a gentleman, prematurely broad for his years, clothed in a professional blue jean frock and top-boots with circular toes, entered the room nearly out of breath, closely followed by another gentleman in very shabby black, and a sealskin cap. The latter gentleman, who fastened his coat all the way up to his chin by means of a pin and a button alternately, had a very coarse red face, and looked like a drunken chaplain; which, indeed, he was.
These two gentlemen having by turns perused Mr. Pickwick’s billet, the one expressed his opinion that it was ‘a rig,’ and the other his conviction that it was ‘a go.’ Having recorded their feelings in these very intelligible terms, they looked at Mr. Pickwick and each other in awkward silence.
‘It’s an aggravating thing, just as we got the beds so snug,’ said the chaplain, looking at three dirty mattresses, each rolled up in a blanket; which occupied one corner of the room during the day, and formed a kind of slab, on which were placed an old cracked basin, ewer, and soap-dish, of common yellow earthenware, with a blue flower – ‘very aggravating.’
Mr. Martin expressed the same opinion in rather stronger terms; Mr. Simpson, after having let a variety of expletive adjectives loose upon society without any substantive to accompany them, tucked up his sleeves, and began to wash the greens for dinner.
While this was going on, Mr. Pickwick had been eyeing the room, which was filthily dirty, and smelt intolerably close. There was no vestige of either carpet, curtain, or blind. There was not even a closet in it. Unquestionably there were but few things to put away, if there had been one; but, however few in number, or small in individual amount, still, remnants of loaves and pieces of cheese, and damp towels, and scrags of meat, and articles of wearing apparel, and mutilated crockery, and bellows without nozzles, and toasting-forks without prongs, do present somewhat of an uncomfortable appearance when they are scattered about the floor of a small apartment, which is the common sitting and sleeping room of three idle men.
‘I suppose this can be managed somehow,’ said the butcher, after a pretty long silence. ‘What will you take to go out?’
I beg your pardon,’ replied Mr. Pickwick. ‘What did you say? I hardly understand you.’
‘What will you take to be paid out?’ said the butcher. ‘The regular chummage is two-and-six. Will you take three bob?’
‘And a bender,’ suggested the clerical gentleman.
‘Well, I don’t mind that; it’s only twopence a piece more,’ said Mr. Martin. ‘What do you say, now? We’ll pay you out for three-and-sixpence a week. Come!’
‘And stand a gallon of beer down,’ chimed in Mr. Simpson. ‘There!’
‘And drink it on the spot,’ said the chaplain. ‘Now!’
‘I really am so wholly ignorant of the rules of this place,’ returned Mr. Pickwick, ‘that I do not yet comprehend you. Can I live anywhere else? I thought I could not.’
At this inquiry Mr. Martin looked, with a countenance of excessive surprise, at his two friends, and then each gentleman pointed with his right thumb over his left shoulder. This action imperfectly described in words by the very feeble term of ‘over the left,’ when performed by any number of ladies or gentlemen who are accustomed to act in unison, has a very graceful and airy effect; its expression is one of light and playful sarcasm.
‘Can you!’ repeated Mr. Martin, with a smile of pity.
‘Well, if I knew as little of life as that, I’d eat my hat and swallow the buckle whole,’ said the clerical gentleman.
‘So would I,’ added the sporting one solemnly.
After this introductory preface, the three chums informed Mr. Pickwick, in a breath, that money was, in the Fleet, just what money was out of it; that it would instantly procure him almost anything he desired; and that, supposing he had it, and had no objection to spend it, if he only signified his wish to have a room to himself, he might take possession of one, furnished and fitted to boot, in half an hour’s time.
With this the parties separated, very much to their common satisfaction; Mr. Pickwick once more retracing his steps to the lodge, and the three companions adjourning to the coffee-room, there to spend the five shillings which the clerical gentleman had, with admirable prudence and foresight, borrowed of him for the purpose.
‘I knowed it!’ said Mr. Roker, with a chuckle, when Mr. Pickwick stated the object with which he had returned. ‘Didn’t I say so, Neddy?’
The philosophical owner of the universal penknife growled an affirmative.
‘I knowed you’d want a room for yourself, bless you!’ said Mr. Roker. ‘Let me see. You’ll want some furniture. You’ll hire that of me, I suppose? That’s the reg’lar thing.’
‘With great pleasure,’ replied Mr. Pickwick.
‘There’s a capital room up in the coffee-room flight, that belongs to a Chancery prisoner,’ said Mr. Roker. ‘It’ll stand you in a pound a week. I suppose you don’t mind that?’
‘Not at all,’ said Mr. Pickwick.
‘Just step there with me,’ said Roker, taking up his hat with great alacrity; ‘the matter’s settled in five minutes. Lord! why didn’t you say at first that you was willing to come down handsome?’
The matter was soon arranged, as the turnkey had foretold. The Chancery prisoner had been there long enough to have lost his friends, fortune, home, and happiness, and to have acquired the right of having a room to himself. As he laboured, however, under the inconvenience of often wanting a morsel of bread, he eagerly listened to Mr. Pickwick’s proposal to rent the apartment, and readily covenanted and agreed to yield him up the sole and undisturbed possession thereof, in consideration of the weekly payment of twenty shillings; from which fund he furthermore contracted to pay out any person or persons that might be chummed upon it.
As they struck the bargain, Mr. Pickwick surveyed him with a painful interest. He was a tall, gaunt, cadaverous man, in an old greatcoat and slippers, with sunken cheeks, and a restless, eager eye. His lips were bloodless, and his bones sharp and thin. God help him! the iron teeth of confinement and privation had been slowly filing him down for twenty years.
‘And where will you live meanwhile, Sir?’ said Mr. Pickwick, as he laid the amount of the first week’s rent, in advance, on the tottering table.
The man gathered up the money with a trembling hand, and replied that he didn’t know yet; he must go and see where he could move his bed to.
‘I am afraid, sir,’ said Mr. Pickwick, laying his hand gently and compassionately on his arm – ‘I am afraid you will have to live in some noisy, crowded place. Now, pray, consider this room your own when you want quiet, or when any of your friends come to see you.’