clients; raising his head from the paper, he said, rather snappishly--
'Who is with me in this case?'
'Mr. Phunky, Serjeant Snubbin,' replied the attorney.
'Phunky--Phunky,' said the Serjeant, 'I never heard the name before. He
must be a very young man.'
'Yes, he is a very young man,' replied the attorney. 'He was only called
the other day. Let me see--he has not been at the Bar eight years yet.'
'Ah, I thought not,' said the Serjeant, in that sort of pitying tone in
which ordinary folks would speak of a very helpless little child. 'Mr.
Mallard, send round to Mr.--Mr.--' 'Phunky's--Holborn Court, Gray's
Inn,' interposed Perker. (Holborn Court, by the bye, is South Square
now.) 'Mr. Phunky, and say I should be glad if he'd step here, a
moment.'
Mr. Mallard departed to execute his commission; and Serjeant Snubbin
relapsed into abstraction until Mr. Phunky himself was introduced.
Although an infant barrister, he was a full-grown man. He had a very
nervous manner, and a painful hesitation in his speech; it did not
appear to be a natural defect, but seemed rather the result of timidity,
arising from the consciousness of being 'kept down' by want of means,
or interest, or connection, or impudence, as the case might be. He was
overawed by the Serjeant, and profoundly courteous to the attorney.
'I have not had the pleasure of seeing you before, Mr. Phunky,' said
Serjeant Snubbin, with haughty condescension.
Mr. Phunky bowed. He HAD had the pleasure of seeing the Serjeant, and
of envying him too, with all a poor man's envy, for eight years and a
quarter.
'You are with me in this case, I understand?' said the Serjeant.
If Mr. Phunky had been a rich man, he would have instantly sent for his
clerk to remind him; if he had been a wise one, he would have applied
his forefinger to his forehead, and endeavoured to recollect, whether,
in the multiplicity of his engagements, he had undertaken this one or
not; but as he was neither rich nor wise (in this sense, at all events)
he turned red, and bowed.
'Have you read the papers, Mr. Phunky?' inquired the Serjeant.
Here again, Mr. Phunky should have professed to have forgotten all about
the merits of the case; but as he had read such papers as had been laid
before him in the course of the action, and had thought of nothing else,
waking or sleeping, throughout the two months during which he had been
retained as Mr. Serjeant Snubbin's junior, he turned a deeper red and
bowed again.
'This is Mr. Pickwick,' said the Serjeant, waving his pen in the
direction in which that gentleman was standing.
Mr. Phunky bowed to Mr. Pickwick, with a reverence which a first client
must ever awaken; and again inclined his head towards his leader.
'Perhaps you will take Mr. Pickwick away,' said the Serjeant,
'and--and--and--hear anything Mr. Pickwick may wish to communicate. We
shall have a consultation, of course.' With that hint that he had
been interrupted quite long enough, Mr. Serjeant Snubbin, who had been
gradually growing more and more abstracted, applied his glass to his
eyes for an instant, bowed slightly round, and was once more deeply
immersed in the case before him, which arose out of an interminable
lawsuit, originating in the act of an individual, deceased a century
or so ago, who had stopped up a pathway leading from some place which
nobody ever came from, to some other place which nobody ever went to.
Mr. Phunky would not hear of passing through any door until Mr. Pickwick
and his solicitor had passed through before him, so it was some time
before they got into the Square; and when they did reach it, they walked
up and down, and held a long conference, the result of which was, that
it was a very difficult matter to say how the verdict would go; that
nobody could presume to calculate on the issue of an action; that it
was very lucky they had prevented the other party from getting Serjeant
Snubbin; and other topics of doubt and consolation, common in such a
position of affairs.
Mr. Weller was then roused by his master from a sweet sleep of an hour's
duration; and, bidding adieu to Lowten, they returned to the city.
CHAPTER XXXII. DESCRIBES, FAR MORE FULLY THAN THE COURT NEWSMAN EVER
DID, A BACHELOR'S PARTY, GIVEN BY Mr. BOB SAWYER AT HIS LODGINGS IN THE
BOROUGH
There is a repose about Lant Street, in the Borough, which sheds a
gentle melancholy upon the soul. There are always a good many houses to
let in the street: it is a by-street too, and its dulness is soothing.
A house in Lant Street would not come within the denomination of a
first-rate residence, in the strict acceptation of the term; but it is
a most desirable spot nevertheless. If a man wished to abstract
himself from the world--to remove himself from within the reach of
temptation--to place himself beyond the possibility of any inducement to
look out of the window--we should recommend him by all means go to Lant
Street.
In this happy retreat are colonised a few clear-starchers, a sprinkling
of journeymen bookbinders, one or two prison agents for the Insolvent
Court, several small housekeepers who are employed in the Docks, a
handful of mantua-makers, and a seasoning of jobbing tailors. The
majority of the inhabitants either direct their energies to the letting
of furnished apartments, or devote themselves to the healthful and
invigorating pursuit of mangling. The chief features in the still life
of the street are green shutters, lodging-bills, brass door-plates, and
bell-handles; the principal specimens of animated nature, the pot-boy,
the muffin youth, and the baked-potato man. The population is migratory,
usually disappearing on the verge of quarter-day, and generally by
night. His Majesty's revenues are seldom collected in this happy valley;
the rents are dubious; and the water communication is very frequently
cut off.
Mr. Bob Sawyer embellished one side of the fire, in his first-floor
front, early on the evening for which he had invited Mr. Pickwick, and
Mr. Ben Allen the other. The preparations for the reception of visitors
appeared to be completed. The umbrellas in the passage had been heaped
into the little corner outside the back-parlour door; the bonnet and
shawl of the landlady's servant had been removed from the bannisters;
there were not more than two pairs of pattens on the street-door mat;
and a kitchen candle, with a very long snuff, burned cheerfully on the
ledge of the staircase window. Mr. Bob Sawyer had himself purchased the
spirits at a wine vaults in High Street, and had returned home preceding
the bearer thereof, to preclude the possibility of their delivery at
the wrong house. The punch was ready-made in a red pan in the bedroom;
a little table, covered with a green baize cloth, had been borrowed from
the parlour, to play at cards on; and the glasses of the establishment,
together with those which had been borrowed for the occasion from the
public-house, were all drawn up in a tray, which was deposited on the
landing outside the door.
Notwithstanding the highly satisfactory nature of all these
arrangements, there was a cloud on the countenance of Mr. Bob Sawyer, as
he sat by the fireside. There was a sympathising expression, too, in the
features of Mr. Ben Allen, as he gazed intently on the coals, and a tone
of melancholy in his voice, as he said, after a long silence--'Well, it
is unlucky she should have taken it in her head to turn sour, just on
this occasion. She might at least have waited till to-morrow.'
'That's her malevolence--that's her malevolence,' returned Mr. Bob
Sawyer vehemently. 'She says that if I can afford to give a party I
ought to be able to pay her confounded "little bill."' 'How long has it
been running?' inquired Mr. Ben Allen. A bill, by the bye, is the most
extraordinary locomotive engine that the genius of man ever produced.
It would keep on running during the longest lifetime, without ever once
stopping of its own accord.
'Only a quarter, and a month or so,' replied Mr. Bob Sawyer.
Ben Allen coughed hopelessly, and directed a searching look between the
two top bars of the stove.
'It'll be a deuced unpleasant thing if she takes it into her head to
let out, when those fellows are here, won't it?' said Mr. Ben Allen at
length.
'Horrible,' replied Bob Sawyer, 'horrible.' A low tap was heard at the
room door. Mr. Bob Sawyer looked expressively at his friend, and bade
the tapper come in; whereupon a dirty, slipshod girl in black cotton
stockings, who might have passed for the neglected daughter of a
superannuated dustman in very reduced circumstances, thrust in her head,
and said--
'Please, Mister Sawyer, Missis Raddle wants to speak to you.'
Before Mr. Bob Sawyer could return any answer, the girl suddenly
disappeared with a jerk, as if somebody had given her a violent pull
behind; this mysterious exit was no sooner accomplished, than there
was another tap at the door--a smart, pointed tap, which seemed to say,
'Here I am, and in I'm coming.'
Mr. Bob Sawyer glanced at his friend with a look of abject apprehension,
and once more cried, 'Come in.'
The permission was not at all necessary, for, before Mr. Bob Sawyer had
uttered the words, a little, fierce woman bounced into the room, all in
a tremble with passion, and pale with rage.
'Now, Mr. Sawyer,' said the little, fierce woman, trying to appear very
calm, 'if you'll have the kindness to settle that little bill of mine
I'll thank you, because I've got my rent to pay this afternoon, and my
landlord's a-waiting below now.' Here the little woman rubbed her hands,
and looked steadily over Mr. Bob Sawyer's head, at the wall behind him.
'I am very sorry to put you to any inconvenience, Mrs. Raddle,' said Bob
Sawyer deferentially, 'but--'
'Oh, it isn't any inconvenience,' replied the little woman, with a
shrill titter. 'I didn't want it particular before to-day; leastways, as
it has to go to my landlord directly, it was as well for you to keep it
as me. You promised me this afternoon, Mr. Sawyer, and every gentleman
as has ever lived here, has kept his word, Sir, as of course anybody as
calls himself a gentleman does.' Mrs. Raddle tossed her head, bit her
lips, rubbed her hands harder, and looked at the wall more steadily
than ever. It was plain to see, as Mr. Bob Sawyer remarked in a style
of Eastern allegory on a subsequent occasion, that she was 'getting the
steam up.'
'I am very sorry, Mrs. Raddle,' said Bob Sawyer, with all imaginable
humility, 'but the fact is, that I have been disappointed in the City
to-day.'--Extraordinary place that City. An astonishing number of men
always ARE getting disappointed there.
'Well, Mr. Sawyer,' said Mrs. Raddle, planting herself firmly on a
purple cauliflower in the Kidderminster carpet, 'and what's that to me,
Sir?'
'I--I--have no doubt, Mrs. Raddle,' said Bob Sawyer, blinking this last
question, 'that before the middle of next week we shall be able to set
ourselves quite square, and go on, on a better system, afterwards.'
This was all Mrs. Raddle wanted. She had bustled up to the apartment of
the unlucky Bob Sawyer, so bent upon going into a passion, that, in all
probability, payment would have rather disappointed her than otherwise.
She was in excellent order for a little relaxation of the kind, having
just exchanged a few introductory compliments with Mr. R. in the front
kitchen.
'Do you suppose, Mr. Sawyer,' said Mrs. Raddle, elevating her voice for
the information of the neighbours--'do you suppose that I'm a-going day
after day to let a fellar occupy my lodgings as never thinks of paying
his rent, nor even the very money laid out for the fresh butter and lump
sugar that's bought for his breakfast, and the very milk that's took in,
at the street door? Do you suppose a hard-working and industrious woman
as has lived in this street for twenty year (ten year over the way, and
nine year and three-quarters in this very house) has nothing else to do
but to work herself to death after a parcel of lazy idle fellars, that
are always smoking and drinking, and lounging, when they ought to be
glad to turn their hands to anything that would help 'em to pay their
bills? Do you--'
'My good soul,' interposed Mr. Benjamin Allen soothingly.
'Have the goodness to keep your observashuns to yourself, Sir, I beg,'
said Mrs. Raddle, suddenly arresting the rapid torrent of her speech,
and addressing the third party with impressive slowness and solemnity.
'I am not aweer, Sir, that you have any right to address your
conversation to me. I don't think I let these apartments to you, Sir.'
'No, you certainly did not,' said Mr. Benjamin Allen.
'Very good, Sir,' responded Mrs. Raddle, with lofty politeness. 'Then
p'raps, Sir, you'll confine yourself to breaking the arms and legs of
the poor people in the hospitals, and keep yourself TO yourself, Sir, or
there may be some persons here as will make you, Sir.'
'But you are such an unreasonable woman,' remonstrated Mr. Benjamin
Allen.
'I beg your parding, young man,' said Mrs. Raddle, in a cold
perspiration of anger. 'But will you have the goodness just to call me
that again, sir?'
'I didn't make use of the word in any invidious sense, ma'am,' replied
Mr. Benjamin Allen, growing somewhat uneasy on his own account.
'I beg your parding, young man,' demanded Mrs. Raddle, in a louder and
more imperative tone. 'But who do you call a woman? Did you make that
remark to me, sir?'
'Why, bless my heart!' said Mr. Benjamin Allen.
