'No, no, I won't return it,' said Fogg, falling back a little more as
he spoke; to the evident relief of his partner, who by these means was
gradually getting into the outer office.
'You are,' continued Mr. Pickwick, resuming the thread of his
discourse--'you are a well-matched pair of mean, rascally, pettifogging
robbers.'
'Well,' interposed Perker, 'is that all?'
'It is all summed up in that,' rejoined Mr. Pickwick; 'they are mean,
rascally, pettifogging robbers.'
'There!' said Perker, in a most conciliatory tone. 'My dear sirs, he has
said all he has to say. Now pray go. Lowten, is that door open?'
Mr. Lowten, with a distant giggle, replied in the affirmative.
'There, there--good-morning--good-morning--now pray, my dear sirs--Mr.
Lowten, the door!' cried the little man, pushing Dodson & Fogg, nothing
loath, out of the office; 'this way, my dear sirs--now pray don't
prolong this--Dear me--Mr. Lowten--the door, sir--why don't you attend?'
'If there's law in England, sir,' said Dodson, looking towards Mr.
Pickwick, as he put on his hat, 'you shall smart for this.'
'You are a couple of mean--'
'Remember, sir, you pay dearly for this,' said Fogg.
'--Rascally, pettifogging robbers!' continued Mr. Pickwick, taking not
the least notice of the threats that were addressed to him.
'Robbers!' cried Mr. Pickwick, running to the stair-head, as the two
attorneys descended.
'Robbers!' shouted Mr. Pickwick, breaking from Lowten and Perker, and
thrusting his head out of the staircase window.
When Mr. Pickwick drew in his head again, his countenance was smiling
and placid; and, walking quietly back into the office, he declared
that he had now removed a great weight from his mind, and that he felt
perfectly comfortable and happy.
Perker said nothing at all until he had emptied his snuff-box, and sent
Lowten out to fill it, when he was seized with a fit of laughing, which
lasted five minutes; at the expiration of which time he said that
he supposed he ought to be very angry, but he couldn't think of the
business seriously yet--when he could, he would be.
'Well, now,' said Mr. Pickwick, 'let me have a settlement with you.' 'Of
the same kind as the last?' inquired Perker, with another laugh. 'Not
exactly,' rejoined Mr. Pickwick, drawing out his pocket-book, and
shaking the little man heartily by the hand, 'I only mean a pecuniary
settlement. You have done me many acts of kindness that I can
never repay, and have no wish to repay, for I prefer continuing the
obligation.'
With this preface, the two friends dived into some very complicated
accounts and vouchers, which, having been duly displayed and gone
through by Perker, were at once discharged by Mr. Pickwick with many
professions of esteem and friendship.
They had no sooner arrived at this point, than a most violent and
startling knocking was heard at the door; it was not an ordinary
double-knock, but a constant and uninterrupted succession of the loudest
single raps, as if the knocker were endowed with the perpetual motion,
or the person outside had forgotten to leave off.
'Dear me, what's that?' exclaimed Perker, starting.
'I think it is a knock at the door,' said Mr. Pickwick, as if there
could be the smallest doubt of the fact.
The knocker made a more energetic reply than words could have yielded,
for it continued to hammer with surprising force and noise, without a
moment's cessation.
'Dear me!' said Perker, ringing his bell, 'we shall alarm the inn. Mr.
Lowten, don't you hear a knock?'
'I'll answer the door in one moment, Sir,' replied the clerk.
The knocker appeared to hear the response, and to assert that it was
quite impossible he could wait so long. It made a stupendous uproar.
'It's quite dreadful,' said Mr. Pickwick, stopping his ears.
'Make haste, Mr. Lowten,' Perker called out; 'we shall have the panels
beaten in.'
Mr. Lowten, who was washing his hands in a dark closet, hurried to the
door, and turning the handle, beheld the appearance which is described
in the next chapter.
CHAPTER LIV. CONTAINING SOME PARTICULARS RELATIVE TO THE DOUBLE KNOCK,
AND OTHER MATTERS: AMONG WHICH CERTAIN INTERESTING DISCLOSURES RELATIVE
TO Mr. SNODGRASS AND A YOUNG LADY ARE BY NO MEANS IRRELEVANT TO THIS
HISTORY
The object that presented itself to the eyes of the astonished clerk,
was a boy--a wonderfully fat boy--habited as a serving lad, standing
upright on the mat, with his eyes closed as if in sleep. He had never
seen such a fat boy, in or out of a travelling caravan; and this,
coupled with the calmness and repose of his appearance, so very
different from what was reasonably to have been expected of the
inflicter of such knocks, smote him with wonder.
'What's the matter?' inquired the clerk.
The extraordinary boy replied not a word; but he nodded once, and
seemed, to the clerk's imagination, to snore feebly.
'Where do you come from?' inquired the clerk.
The boy made no sign. He breathed heavily, but in all other respects was
motionless.
The clerk repeated the question thrice, and receiving no answer,
prepared to shut the door, when the boy suddenly opened his eyes, winked
several times, sneezed once, and raised his hand as if to repeat the
knocking. Finding the door open, he stared about him with astonishment,
and at length fixed his eyes on Mr. Lowten's face.
'What the devil do you knock in that way for?' inquired the clerk
angrily.
'Which way?' said the boy, in a slow and sleepy voice.
'Why, like forty hackney-coachmen,' replied the clerk.
'Because master said, I wasn't to leave off knocking till they opened
the door, for fear I should go to sleep,' said the boy.
'Well,' said the clerk, 'what message have you brought?'
'He's downstairs,' rejoined the boy.
'Who?'
'Master. He wants to know whether you're at home.'
Mr. Lowten bethought himself, at this juncture, of looking out of the
window. Seeing an open carriage with a hearty old gentleman in it,
looking up very anxiously, he ventured to beckon him; on which, the old
gentleman jumped out directly.
'That's your master in the carriage, I suppose?' said Lowten.
The boy nodded.
All further inquiries were superseded by the appearance of old Wardle,
who, running upstairs and just recognising Lowten, passed at once into
Mr. Perker's room.
'Pickwick!' said the old gentleman. 'Your hand, my boy! Why have I never
heard until the day before yesterday of your suffering yourself to be
cooped up in jail? And why did you let him do it, Perker?'
'I couldn't help it, my dear Sir,' replied Perker, with a smile and a
pinch of snuff; 'you know how obstinate he is?'
'Of course I do; of course I do,' replied the old gentleman. 'I am
heartily glad to see him, notwithstanding. I will not lose sight of him
again, in a hurry.'
With these words, Wardle shook Mr. Pickwick's hand once more, and,
having done the same by Perker, threw himself into an arm-chair, his
jolly red face shining again with smiles and health.
'Well!' said Wardle. 'Here are pretty goings on--a pinch of your snuff,
Perker, my boy--never were such times, eh?'
'What do you mean?' inquired Mr. Pickwick.
'Mean!' replied Wardle. 'Why, I think the girls are all running mad;
that's no news, you'll say? Perhaps it's not; but it's true, for all
that.'
'You have not come up to London, of all places in the world, to tell us
that, my dear Sir, have you?' inquired Perker.
'No, not altogether,' replied Wardle; 'though it was the main cause of
my coming. How's Arabella?'
'Very well,' replied Mr. Pickwick, 'and will be delighted to see you, I
am sure.'
'Black-eyed little jilt!' replied Wardle. 'I had a great idea of
marrying her myself, one of these odd days. But I am glad of it too,
very glad.'
'How did the intelligence reach you?' asked Mr. Pickwick.
'Oh, it came to my girls, of course,'replied Wardle. 'Arabella wrote,
the day before yesterday, to say she had made a stolen match without her
husband's father's consent, and so you had gone down to get it when
his refusing it couldn't prevent the match, and all the rest of it. I
thought it a very good time to say something serious to my girls; so
I said what a dreadful thing it was that children should marry without
their parents' consent, and so forth; but, bless your hearts, I couldn't
make the least impression upon them. They thought it such a much
more dreadful thing that there should have been a wedding without
bridesmaids, that I might as well have preached to Joe himself.' Here
the old gentleman stopped to laugh; and having done so to his heart's
content, presently resumed--
'But this is not the best of it, it seems. This is only half the
love-making and plotting that have been going forward. We have been
walking on mines for the last six months, and they're sprung at last.'
'What do you mean?' exclaimed Mr. Pickwick, turning pale; 'no other
secret marriage, I hope?'
'No, no,' replied old Wardle; 'not so bad as that; no.'
'What then?' inquired Mr. Pickwick; 'am I interested in it?'
'Shall I answer that question, Perker?' said Wardle.
'If you don't commit yourself by doing so, my dear Sir.'
'Well then, you are,' said Wardle.
'How?' asked Mr. Pickwick anxiously. 'In what way?'
'Really,' replied Wardle, 'you're such a fiery sort of a young fellow
that I am almost afraid to tell you; but, however, if Perker will sit
between us to prevent mischief, I'll venture.'
Having closed the room door, and fortified himself with another
application to Perker's snuff-box, the old gentleman proceeded with his
great disclosure in these words--
'The fact is, that my daughter Bella--Bella, who married young Trundle,
you know.'
'Yes, yes, we know,' said Mr. Pickwick impatiently.
'Don't alarm me at the very beginning. My daughter Bella--Emily having
gone to bed with a headache after she had read Arabella's letter to
me--sat herself down by my side the other evening, and began to talk
over this marriage affair. "Well, pa," she says, "what do you think of
it?" "Why, my dear," I said, "I suppose it's all very well; I hope it's
for the best." I answered in this way because I was sitting before the
fire at the time, drinking my grog rather thoughtfully, and I knew my
throwing in an undecided word now and then, would induce her to continue
talking. Both my girls are pictures of their dear mother, and as I grow
old I like to sit with only them by me; for their voices and looks carry
me back to the happiest period of my life, and make me, for the moment,
as young as I used to be then, though not quite so light-hearted. "It's
quite a marriage of affection, pa," said Bella, after a short silence.
"Yes, my dear," said I, "but such marriages do not always turn out the
happiest."'
'I question that, mind!' interposed Mr. Pickwick warmly. 'Very good,'
responded Wardle, 'question anything you like when it's your turn to
speak, but don't interrupt me.'
'I beg your pardon,' said Mr. Pickwick.
'Granted,' replied Wardle. '"I am sorry to hear you express your opinion
against marriages of affection, pa," said Bella, colouring a little.
"I was wrong; I ought not to have said so, my dear, either," said I,
patting her cheek as kindly as a rough old fellow like me could pat it,
"for your mother's was one, and so was yours." "It's not that I meant,
pa," said Bella. "The fact is, pa, I wanted to speak to you about
Emily."'
Mr. Pickwick started.
'What's the matter now?' inquired Wardle, stopping in his narrative.
'Nothing,'replied Mr. Pickwick. 'Pray go on.'
'I never could spin out a story,' said Wardle abruptly. 'It must come
out, sooner or later, and it'll save us all a great deal of time if it
comes at once. The long and the short of it is, then, that Bella at last
mustered up courage to tell me that Emily was very unhappy; that she
and your young friend Snodgrass had been in constant correspondence and
communication ever since last Christmas; that she had very dutifully
made up her mind to run away with him, in laudable imitation of her
old friend and school-fellow; but that having some compunctions of
conscience on the subject, inasmuch as I had always been rather kindly
disposed to both of them, they had thought it better in the first
instance to pay me the compliment of asking whether I would have any
objection to their being married in the usual matter-of-fact manner.
There now, Mr. Pickwick, if you can make it convenient to reduce your
eyes to their usual size again, and to let me hear what you think we
ought to do, I shall feel rather obliged to you!'
The testy manner in which the hearty old gentleman uttered this last
sentence was not wholly unwarranted; for Mr. Pickwick's face had settled
down into an expression of blank amazement and perplexity, quite curious
to behold.
'Snodgrass!-since last Christmas!' were the first broken words that
issued from the lips of the confounded gentleman.
'Since last Christmas,' replied Wardle; 'that's plain enough, and very
