comes a fat chap in black, vith a great white face, a-smilin' avay
like clockwork. Such goin's on, Sammy! "The kiss of peace," says the
shepherd; and then he kissed the women all round, and ven he'd done,
the man vith the red nose began. I was just a-thinkin' whether I hadn't
better begin too--'specially as there was a wery nice lady a-sittin'
next me--ven in comes the tea, and your mother-in-law, as had been
makin' the kettle bile downstairs. At it they went, tooth and nail. Such
a precious loud hymn, Sammy, while the tea was a brewing; such a grace,
such eatin' and drinkin'! I wish you could ha' seen the shepherd
walkin' into the ham and muffins. I never see such a chap to eat and
drink--never. The red-nosed man warn't by no means the sort of person
you'd like to grub by contract, but he was nothin' to the shepherd.
Well; arter the tea was over, they sang another hymn, and then the
shepherd began to preach: and wery well he did it, considerin' how heavy
them muffins must have lied on his chest. Presently he pulls up, all of
a sudden, and hollers out, "Where is the sinner; where is the mis'rable
sinner?" Upon which, all the women looked at me, and began to groan as
if they was a-dying. I thought it was rather sing'ler, but howsoever, I
says nothing. Presently he pulls up again, and lookin' wery hard at me,
says, "Where is the sinner; where is the mis'rable sinner?" and all the
women groans again, ten times louder than afore. I got rather savage at
this, so I takes a step or two for'ard and says, "My friend," says I,
"did you apply that 'ere obserwation to me?" 'Stead of beggin' my pardon
as any gen'l'm'n would ha' done, he got more abusive than ever:--called
me a wessel, Sammy--a wessel of wrath--and all sorts o' names. So my
blood being reg'larly up, I first gave him two or three for himself, and
then two or three more to hand over to the man with the red nose, and
walked off. I wish you could ha' heard how the women screamed, Sammy,
ven they picked up the shepherd from underneath the table--Hollo! here's
the governor, the size of life.'
As Mr. Weller spoke, Mr. Pickwick dismounted from a cab, and entered the
yard. 'Fine mornin', Sir,' said Mr. Weller, senior.
'Beautiful indeed,' replied Mr. Pickwick.
'Beautiful indeed,' echoes a red-haired man with an inquisitive nose and
green spectacles, who had unpacked himself from a cab at the same moment
as Mr. Pickwick. 'Going to Ipswich, Sir?'
'I am,' replied Mr. Pickwick.
'Extraordinary coincidence. So am I.'
Mr. Pickwick bowed.
'Going outside?' said the red-haired man. Mr. Pickwick bowed again.
'Bless my soul, how remarkable--I am going outside, too,' said the
red-haired man; 'we are positively going together.' And the red-haired
man, who was an important-looking, sharp-nosed, mysterious-spoken
personage, with a bird-like habit of giving his head a jerk every
time he said anything, smiled as if he had made one of the strangest
discoveries that ever fell to the lot of human wisdom.
'I am happy in the prospect of your company, Sir,' said Mr. Pickwick.
'Ah,' said the new-comer, 'it's a good thing for both of us, isn't it?
Company, you see--company--is--is--it's a very different thing from
solitude--ain't it?'
'There's no denying that 'ere,' said Mr. Weller, joining in the
conversation, with an affable smile. 'That's what I call a self-evident
proposition, as the dog's-meat man said, when the housemaid told him he
warn't a gentleman.'
'Ah,' said the red-haired man, surveying Mr. Weller from head to foot
with a supercilious look. 'Friend of yours, sir?'
'Not exactly a friend,' replied Mr. Pickwick, in a low tone. 'The fact
is, he is my servant, but I allow him to take a good many liberties;
for, between ourselves, I flatter myself he is an original, and I am
rather proud of him.'
'Ah,' said the red-haired man, 'that, you see, is a matter of taste.
I am not fond of anything original; I don't like it; don't see the
necessity for it. What's your name, sir?'
'Here is my card, sir,' replied Mr. Pickwick, much amused by the
abruptness of the question, and the singular manner of the stranger.
'Ah,' said the red-haired man, placing the card in his pocket-book,
'Pickwick; very good. I like to know a man's name, it saves so much
trouble. That's my card, sir. Magnus, you will perceive, sir--Magnus is
my name. It's rather a good name, I think, sir.'
'A very good name, indeed,' said Mr. Pickwick, wholly unable to repress
a smile.
'Yes, I think it is,' resumed Mr. Magnus. 'There's a good name before
it, too, you will observe. Permit me, sir--if you hold the card a little
slanting, this way, you catch the light upon the up-stroke. There--Peter
Magnus--sounds well, I think, sir.'
'Very,' said Mr. Pickwick.
'Curious circumstance about those initials, sir,' said Mr. Magnus.
'You will observe--P.M.--post meridian. In hasty notes to intimate
acquaintance, I sometimes sign myself "Afternoon." It amuses my friends
very much, Mr. Pickwick.'
'It is calculated to afford them the highest gratification, I should
conceive,' said Mr. Pickwick, rather envying the ease with which Mr.
Magnus's friends were entertained.
'Now, gen'l'm'n,' said the hostler, 'coach is ready, if you please.'
'Is all my luggage in?' inquired Mr. Magnus.
'All right, sir.'
'Is the red bag in?'
'All right, Sir.'
'And the striped bag?'
'Fore boot, Sir.'
'And the brown-paper parcel?'
'Under the seat, Sir.'
'And the leather hat-box?'
'They're all in, Sir.'
'Now, will you get up?' said Mr. Pickwick.
'Excuse me,' replied Magnus, standing on the wheel. 'Excuse me, Mr.
Pickwick. I cannot consent to get up, in this state of uncertainty. I am
quite satisfied from that man's manner, that the leather hat-box is not
in.'
The solemn protestations of the hostler being wholly unavailing, the
leather hat-box was obliged to be raked up from the lowest depth of the
boot, to satisfy him that it had been safely packed; and after he had
been assured on this head, he felt a solemn presentiment, first, that
the red bag was mislaid, and next that the striped bag had been stolen,
and then that the brown-paper parcel 'had come untied.' At length when
he had received ocular demonstration of the groundless nature of each
and every of these suspicions, he consented to climb up to the roof of
the coach, observing that now he had taken everything off his mind, he
felt quite comfortable and happy.
'You're given to nervousness, ain't you, Sir?' inquired Mr. Weller,
senior, eyeing the stranger askance, as he mounted to his place.
'Yes; I always am rather about these little matters,' said the stranger,
'but I am all right now--quite right.'
'Well, that's a blessin', said Mr. Weller. 'Sammy, help your master up
to the box; t'other leg, Sir, that's it; give us your hand, Sir. Up with
you. You was a lighter weight when you was a boy, sir.' 'True enough,
that, Mr. Weller,' said the breathless Mr. Pickwick good-humouredly, as
he took his seat on the box beside him.
'Jump up in front, Sammy,' said Mr. Weller. 'Now Villam, run 'em out.
Take care o' the archvay, gen'l'm'n. "Heads," as the pieman says.
That'll do, Villam. Let 'em alone.' And away went the coach up
Whitechapel, to the admiration of the whole population of that pretty
densely populated quarter.
'Not a wery nice neighbourhood, this, Sir,' said Sam, with a touch of
the hat, which always preceded his entering into conversation with his
master.
'It is not indeed, Sam,' replied Mr. Pickwick, surveying the crowded and
filthy street through which they were passing.
'It's a wery remarkable circumstance, Sir,' said Sam, 'that poverty and
oysters always seem to go together.'
'I don't understand you, Sam,' said Mr. Pickwick.
'What I mean, sir,' said Sam, 'is, that the poorer a place is, the
greater call there seems to be for oysters. Look here, sir; here's a
oyster-stall to every half-dozen houses. The street's lined vith 'em.
Blessed if I don't think that ven a man's wery poor, he rushes out of
his lodgings, and eats oysters in reg'lar desperation.'
'To be sure he does,' said Mr. Weller, senior; 'and it's just the same
vith pickled salmon!'
'Those are two very remarkable facts, which never occurred to me
before,' said Mr. Pickwick. 'The very first place we stop at, I'll make
a note of them.'
By this time they had reached the turnpike at Mile End; a profound
silence prevailed until they had got two or three miles farther on, when
Mr. Weller, senior, turning suddenly to Mr. Pickwick, said--
'Wery queer life is a pike-keeper's, sir.'
'A what?' said Mr. Pickwick.
'A pike-keeper.'
'What do you mean by a pike-keeper?' inquired Mr. Peter Magnus.
'The old 'un means a turnpike-keeper, gen'l'm'n,' observed Mr. Samuel
Weller, in explanation.
'Oh,' said Mr. Pickwick, 'I see. Yes; very curious life. Very
uncomfortable.'
'They're all on 'em men as has met vith some disappointment in life,'
said Mr. Weller, senior.
'Ay, ay,' said Mr. Pickwick.
'Yes. Consequence of vich, they retires from the world, and shuts
themselves up in pikes; partly with the view of being solitary, and
partly to rewenge themselves on mankind by takin' tolls.'
'Dear me,' said Mr. Pickwick, 'I never knew that before.'
'Fact, Sir,' said Mr. Weller; 'if they was gen'l'm'n, you'd call 'em
misanthropes, but as it is, they only takes to pike-keepin'.'
With such conversation, possessing the inestimable charm of blending
amusement with instruction, did Mr. Weller beguile the tediousness of
the journey, during the greater part of the day. Topics of conversation
were never wanting, for even when any pause occurred in Mr. Weller's
loquacity, it was abundantly supplied by the desire evinced by Mr.
Magnus to make himself acquainted with the whole of the personal history
of his fellow-travellers, and his loudly-expressed anxiety at every
stage, respecting the safety and well-being of the two bags, the leather
hat-box, and the brown-paper parcel.
In the main street of Ipswich, on the left-hand side of the way, a short
distance after you have passed through the open space fronting the Town
Hall, stands an inn known far and wide by the appellation of the Great
White Horse, rendered the more conspicuous by a stone statue of some
rampacious animal with flowing mane and tail, distantly resembling an
insane cart-horse, which is elevated above the principal door. The Great
White Horse is famous in the neighbourhood, in the same degree as a
prize ox, or a county-paper-chronicled turnip, or unwieldy pig--for its
enormous size. Never was such labyrinths of uncarpeted passages, such
clusters of mouldy, ill-lighted rooms, such huge numbers of small
dens for eating or sleeping in, beneath any one roof, as are collected
together between the four walls of the Great White Horse at Ipswich.
It was at the door of this overgrown tavern that the London coach
stopped, at the same hour every evening; and it was from this same
London coach that Mr. Pickwick, Sam Weller, and Mr. Peter Magnus
dismounted, on the particular evening to which this chapter of our
history bears reference.
'Do you stop here, sir?' inquired Mr. Peter Magnus, when the striped
bag, and the red bag, and the brown-paper parcel, and the leather
hat-box, had all been deposited in the passage. 'Do you stop here, sir?'
'I do,' said Mr. Pickwick.
'Dear me,' said Mr. Magnus, 'I never knew anything like these
extraordinary coincidences. Why, I stop here too. I hope we dine
together?'
'With pleasure,' replied Mr. Pickwick. 'I am not quite certain whether I
have any friends here or not, though. Is there any gentleman of the name
of Tupman here, waiter?'
A corpulent man, with a fortnight's napkin under his arm, and coeval
stockings on his legs, slowly desisted from his occupation of staring
down the street, on this question being put to him by Mr. Pickwick; and,
after minutely inspecting that gentleman's appearance, from the crown of
his hat to the lowest button of his gaiters, replied emphatically--
'No!'
'Nor any gentleman of the name of Snodgrass?' inquired Mr. Pickwick.
'No!'
'Nor Winkle?'
'No!'
'My friends have not arrived to-day, Sir,' said Mr. Pickwick. 'We will
dine alone, then. Show us a private room, waiter.'
On this request being preferred, the corpulent man condescended to order
the boots to bring in the gentlemen's luggage; and preceding them down
a long, dark passage, ushered them into a large, badly-furnished
apartment, with a dirty grate, in which a small fire was making a
wretched attempt to be cheerful, but was fast sinking beneath the
dispiriting influence of the place. After the lapse of an hour, a bit
of fish and a steak was served up to the travellers, and when the dinner
