would ever be dearer to their hearts than any earthly object; and each
had it in his power to state, with the utmost confidence, that he was
the man who would eventually be returned.
There was a show of hands; the mayor decided in favour of the Honourable
Samuel Slumkey, of Slumkey Hall. Horatio Fizkin, Esquire, of Fizkin
Lodge, demanded a poll, and a poll was fixed accordingly. Then a vote of
thanks was moved to the mayor for his able conduct in the chair; and
the mayor, devoutly wishing that he had had a chair to display his able
conduct in (for he had been standing during the whole proceedings),
returned thanks. The processions reformed, the carriages rolled slowly
through the crowd, and its members screeched and shouted after them as
their feelings or caprice dictated.
During the whole time of the polling, the town was in a perpetual
fever of excitement. Everything was conducted on the most liberal and
delightful scale. Excisable articles were remarkably cheap at all the
public-houses; and spring vans paraded the streets for the accommodation
of voters who were seized with any temporary dizziness in the head--an
epidemic which prevailed among the electors, during the contest, to
a most alarming extent, and under the influence of which they
might frequently be seen lying on the pavements in a state of utter
insensibility. A small body of electors remained unpolled on the very
last day. They were calculating and reflecting persons, who had not
yet been convinced by the arguments of either party, although they had
frequent conferences with each. One hour before the close of the poll,
Mr. Perker solicited the honour of a private interview with these
intelligent, these noble, these patriotic men. It was granted. His
arguments were brief but satisfactory. They went in a body to the poll;
and when they returned, the Honourable Samuel Slumkey, of Slumkey Hall,
was returned also.
CHAPTER XIV. COMPRISING A BRIEF DESCRIPTION OF THE COMPANY AT THE
PEACOCK ASSEMBLED; AND A TALE TOLD BY A BAGMAN
It is pleasant to turn from contemplating the strife and turmoil of
political existence, to the peaceful repose of private life. Although in
reality no great partisan of either side, Mr. Pickwick was sufficiently
fired with Mr. Pott's enthusiasm, to apply his whole time and attention
to the proceedings, of which the last chapter affords a description
compiled from his own memoranda. Nor while he was thus occupied was Mr.
Winkle idle, his whole time being devoted to pleasant walks and short
country excursions with Mrs. Pott, who never failed, when such an
opportunity presented itself, to seek some relief from the tedious
monotony she so constantly complained of. The two gentlemen being
thus completely domesticated in the editor's house, Mr. Tupman and Mr.
Snodgrass were in a great measure cast upon their own resources. Taking
but little interest in public affairs, they beguiled their time chiefly
with such amusements as the Peacock afforded, which were limited to a
bagatelle-board in the first floor, and a sequestered skittle-ground
in the back yard. In the science and nicety of both these recreations,
which are far more abstruse than ordinary men suppose, they were
gradually initiated by Mr. Weller, who possessed a perfect knowledge of
such pastimes. Thus, notwithstanding that they were in a great measure
deprived of the comfort and advantage of Mr. Pickwick's society, they
were still enabled to beguile the time, and to prevent its hanging
heavily on their hands.
It was in the evening, however, that the Peacock presented attractions
which enabled the two friends to resist even the invitations of the
gifted, though prosy, Pott. It was in the evening that the 'commercial
room' was filled with a social circle, whose characters and manners it
was the delight of Mr. Tupman to observe; whose sayings and doings it
was the habit of Mr. Snodgrass to note down.
Most people know what sort of places commercial rooms usually are. That
of the Peacock differed in no material respect from the generality of
such apartments; that is to say, it was a large, bare-looking room, the
furniture of which had no doubt been better when it was newer, with a
spacious table in the centre, and a variety of smaller dittos in the
corners; an extensive assortment of variously shaped chairs, and an old
Turkey carpet, bearing about the same relative proportion to the size
of the room, as a lady's pocket-handkerchief might to the floor of a
watch-box. The walls were garnished with one or two large maps; and
several weather-beaten rough greatcoats, with complicated capes, dangled
from a long row of pegs in one corner. The mantel-shelf was ornamented
with a wooden inkstand, containing one stump of a pen and half a wafer;
a road-book and directory; a county history minus the cover; and the
mortal remains of a trout in a glass coffin. The atmosphere was redolent
of tobacco-smoke, the fumes of which had communicated a rather dingy hue
to the whole room, and more especially to the dusty red curtains which
shaded the windows. On the sideboard a variety of miscellaneous articles
were huddled together, the most conspicuous of which were some very
cloudy fish-sauce cruets, a couple of driving-boxes, two or three whips,
and as many travelling shawls, a tray of knives and forks, and the
mustard.
Here it was that Mr. Tupman and Mr. Snodgrass were seated on the evening
after the conclusion of the election, with several other temporary
inmates of the house, smoking and drinking.
'Well, gents,' said a stout, hale personage of about forty, with
only one eye--a very bright black eye, which twinkled with a roguish
expression of fun and good-humour, 'our noble selves, gents. I always
propose that toast to the company, and drink Mary to myself. Eh, Mary!'
'Get along with you, you wretch,' said the hand-maiden, obviously not
ill-pleased with the compliment, however.
'Don't go away, Mary,' said the black-eyed man.
'Let me alone, imperence,' said the young lady.
'Never mind,' said the one-eyed man, calling after the girl as she left
the room. 'I'll step out by and by, Mary. Keep your spirits up, dear.'
Here he went through the not very difficult process of winking upon the
company with his solitary eye, to the enthusiastic delight of an elderly
personage with a dirty face and a clay pipe.
'Rum creeters is women,' said the dirty-faced man, after a pause.
'Ah! no mistake about that,' said a very red-faced man, behind a cigar.
After this little bit of philosophy there was another pause.
'There's rummer things than women in this world though, mind you,' said
the man with the black eye, slowly filling a large Dutch pipe, with a
most capacious bowl.
'Are you married?' inquired the dirty-faced man.
'Can't say I am.'
'I thought not.' Here the dirty-faced man fell into ecstasies of mirth
at his own retort, in which he was joined by a man of bland voice and
placid countenance, who always made it a point to agree with everybody.
'Women, after all, gentlemen,' said the enthusiastic Mr. Snodgrass, 'are
the great props and comforts of our existence.'
'So they are,' said the placid gentleman.
'When they're in a good humour,' interposed the dirty-faced man.
'And that's very true,' said the placid one.
'I repudiate that qualification,' said Mr. Snodgrass, whose thoughts
were fast reverting to Emily Wardle. 'I repudiate it with disdain--with
indignation. Show me the man who says anything against women, as women,
and I boldly declare he is not a man.' And Mr. Snodgrass took his cigar
from his mouth, and struck the table violently with his clenched fist.
'That's good sound argument,' said the placid man.
'Containing a position which I deny,' interrupted he of the dirty
countenance.
'And there's certainly a very great deal of truth in what you observe
too, Sir,' said the placid gentleman.
'Your health, Sir,' said the bagman with the lonely eye, bestowing an
approving nod on Mr. Snodgrass.
Mr. Snodgrass acknowledged the compliment.
'I always like to hear a good argument,'continued the bagman, 'a sharp
one, like this: it's very improving; but this little argument about
women brought to my mind a story I have heard an old uncle of mine
tell, the recollection of which, just now, made me say there were rummer
things than women to be met with, sometimes.'
'I should like to hear that same story,' said the red-faced man with the
cigar.
'Should you?' was the only reply of the bagman, who continued to smoke
with great vehemence.
'So should I,' said Mr. Tupman, speaking for the first time. He was
always anxious to increase his stock of experience.
'Should YOU? Well then, I'll tell it. No, I won't. I know you won't
believe it,' said the man with the roguish eye, making that organ look
more roguish than ever. 'If you say it's true, of course I shall,' said
Mr. Tupman.
'Well, upon that understanding I'll tell you,' replied the traveller.
'Did you ever hear of the great commercial house of Bilson & Slum? But
it doesn't matter though, whether you did or not, because they retired
from business long since. It's eighty years ago, since the circumstance
happened to a traveller for that house, but he was a particular friend
of my uncle's; and my uncle told the story to me. It's a queer name; but
he used to call it
THE BAGMAN'S STORY
and he used to tell it, something in this way.
'One winter's evening, about five o'clock, just as it began to grow
dusk, a man in a gig might have been seen urging his tired horse along
the road which leads across Marlborough Downs, in the direction of
Bristol. I say he might have been seen, and I have no doubt he would
have been, if anybody but a blind man had happened to pass that way; but
the weather was so bad, and the night so cold and wet, that nothing was
out but the water, and so the traveller jogged along in the middle of
the road, lonesome and dreary enough. If any bagman of that day could
have caught sight of the little neck-or-nothing sort of gig, with a
clay-coloured body and red wheels, and the vixenish, ill tempered,
fast-going bay mare, that looked like a cross between a butcher's horse
and a twopenny post-office pony, he would have known at once, that this
traveller could have been no other than Tom Smart, of the great house of
Bilson and Slum, Cateaton Street, City. However, as there was no bagman
to look on, nobody knew anything at all about the matter; and so Tom
Smart and his clay-coloured gig with the red wheels, and the vixenish
mare with the fast pace, went on together, keeping the secret among
them, and nobody was a bit the wiser.
'There are many pleasanter places even in this dreary world, than
Marlborough Downs when it blows hard; and if you throw in beside, a
gloomy winter's evening, a miry and sloppy road, and a pelting fall of
heavy rain, and try the effect, by way of experiment, in your own proper
person, you will experience the full force of this observation.
'The wind blew--not up the road or down it, though that's bad enough,
but sheer across it, sending the rain slanting down like the lines they
used to rule in the copy-books at school, to make the boys slope well.
For a moment it would die away, and the traveller would begin to delude
himself into the belief that, exhausted with its previous fury, it had
quietly laid itself down to rest, when, whoo! he could hear it growling
and whistling in the distance, and on it would come rushing over the
hill-tops, and sweeping along the plain, gathering sound and strength as
it drew nearer, until it dashed with a heavy gust against horse and man,
driving the sharp rain into their ears, and its cold damp breath into
their very bones; and past them it would scour, far, far away, with a
stunning roar, as if in ridicule of their weakness, and triumphant in
the consciousness of its own strength and power.
'The bay mare splashed away, through the mud and water, with drooping
ears; now and then tossing her head as if to express her disgust at this
very ungentlemanly behaviour of the elements, but keeping a good pace
notwithstanding, until a gust of wind, more furious than any that had
yet assailed them, caused her to stop suddenly and plant her four feet
firmly against the ground, to prevent her being blown over. It's a
special mercy that she did this, for if she HAD been blown over, the
vixenish mare was so light, and the gig was so light, and Tom Smart such
a light weight into the bargain, that they must infallibly have all
gone rolling over and over together, until they reached the confines of
earth, or until the wind fell; and in either case the probability is,
that neither the vixenish mare, nor the clay-coloured gig with the red
wheels, nor Tom Smart, would ever have been fit for service again.
'"Well, damn my straps and whiskers," says Tom Smart (Tom sometimes had
an unpleasant knack of swearing)--"damn my straps and whiskers," says
Tom, "if this ain't pleasant, blow me!"
'You'll very likely ask me why, as Tom Smart had been pretty well blown
already, he expressed this wish to be submitted to the same process
again. I can't say--all I know is, that Tom Smart said so--or at least
he always told my uncle he said so, and it's just the same thing.
"'Blow me," says Tom Smart; and the mare neighed as if she were
precisely of the same opinion.
"'Cheer up, old girl," said Tom, patting the bay mare on the neck with
the end of his whip. "It won't do pushing on, such a night as this; the
first house we come to we'll put up at, so the faster you go the sooner
