occasions, he gave halfpence, and on some occasions even sixpences, to
her little boy; and I shall prove to you, by a witness whose testimony
it will be impossible for my learned friend to weaken or controvert,
that on one occasion he patted the boy on the head, and, after inquiring
whether he had won any "ALLEY TORS" or "COMMONEYS" lately (both of which
I understand to be a particular species of marbles much prized by the
youth of this town), made use of this remarkable expression, "How should
you like to have another father?" I shall prove to you, gentlemen, that
about a year ago, Pickwick suddenly began to absent himself from home,
during long intervals, as if with the intention of gradually breaking
off from my client; but I shall show you also, that his resolution
was not at that time sufficiently strong, or that his better
feelings conquered, if better feelings he has, or that the charms and
accomplishments of my client prevailed against his unmanly intentions,
by proving to you, that on one occasion, when he returned from the
country, he distinctly and in terms, offered her marriage: previously,
however, taking special care that there would be no witness to their
solemn contract; and I am in a situation to prove to you, on the
testimony of three of his own friends--most unwilling witnesses,
gentlemen--most unwilling witnesses--that on that morning he was
discovered by them holding the plaintiff in his arms, and soothing her
agitation by his caresses and endearments.'
A visible impression was produced upon the auditors by this part of
the learned Serjeant's address. Drawing forth two very small scraps of
paper, he proceeded--'And now, gentlemen, but one word more. Two letters
have passed between these parties, letters which are admitted to be in
the handwriting of the defendant, and which speak volumes, indeed.
The letters, too, bespeak the character of the man. They are not open,
fervent, eloquent epistles, breathing nothing but the language
of affectionate attachment. They are covert, sly, underhanded
communications, but, fortunately, far more conclusive than if couched in
the most glowing language and the most poetic imagery--letters that
must be viewed with a cautious and suspicious eye--letters that were
evidently intended at the time, by Pickwick, to mislead and delude any
third parties into whose hands they might fall. Let me read the first:
"Garraways, twelve o'clock. Dear Mrs. B.--Chops and tomato sauce. Yours,
PICKWICK." Gentlemen, what does this mean? Chops and tomato sauce.
Yours, Pickwick! Chops! Gracious heavens! and tomato sauce! Gentlemen,
is the happiness of a sensitive and confiding female to be trifled away,
by such shallow artifices as these? The next has no date whatever, which
is in itself suspicious. "Dear Mrs. B., I shall not be at home
till to-morrow. Slow coach." And then follows this very remarkable
expression. "Don't trouble yourself about the warming-pan." The
warming-pan! Why, gentlemen, who DOES trouble himself about a
warming-pan? When was the peace of mind of man or woman broken or
disturbed by a warming-pan, which is in itself a harmless, a useful, and
I will add, gentlemen, a comforting article of domestic furniture? Why
is Mrs. Bardell so earnestly entreated not to agitate herself about this
warming-pan, unless (as is no doubt the case) it is a mere cover for
hidden fire--a mere substitute for some endearing word or promise,
agreeably to a preconcerted system of correspondence, artfully contrived
by Pickwick with a view to his contemplated desertion, and which I am
not in a condition to explain? And what does this allusion to the slow
coach mean? For aught I know, it may be a reference to Pickwick himself,
who has most unquestionably been a criminally slow coach during the
whole of this transaction, but whose speed will now be very unexpectedly
accelerated, and whose wheels, gentlemen, as he will find to his cost,
will very soon be greased by you!'
Mr. Serjeant Buzfuz paused in this place, to see whether the jury
smiled at his joke; but as nobody took it but the greengrocer, whose
sensitiveness on the subject was very probably occasioned by his having
subjected a chaise-cart to the process in question on that identical
morning, the learned Serjeant considered it advisable to undergo a
slight relapse into the dismals before he concluded.
'But enough of this, gentlemen,' said Mr. Serjeant Buzfuz, 'it is
difficult to smile with an aching heart; it is ill jesting when our
deepest sympathies are awakened. My client's hopes and prospects are
ruined, and it is no figure of speech to say that her occupation is
gone indeed. The bill is down--but there is no tenant. Eligible single
gentlemen pass and repass-but there is no invitation for to inquire
within or without. All is gloom and silence in the house; even the
voice of the child is hushed; his infant sports are disregarded when his
mother weeps; his "alley tors" and his "commoneys" are alike neglected;
he forgets the long familiar cry of "knuckle down," and at tip-cheese,
or odd and even, his hand is out. But Pickwick, gentlemen, Pickwick,
the ruthless destroyer of this domestic oasis in the desert of Goswell
Street--Pickwick who has choked up the well, and thrown ashes on the
sward--Pickwick, who comes before you to-day with his heartless tomato
sauce and warming-pans--Pickwick still rears his head with unblushing
effrontery, and gazes without a sigh on the ruin he has made. Damages,
gentlemen--heavy damages is the only punishment with which you can
visit him; the only recompense you can award to my client. And for
those damages she now appeals to an enlightened, a high-minded, a
right-feeling, a conscientious, a dispassionate, a sympathising, a
contemplative jury of her civilised countrymen.' With this beautiful
peroration, Mr. Serjeant Buzfuz sat down, and Mr. Justice Stareleigh
woke up.
'Call Elizabeth Cluppins,' said Serjeant Buzfuz, rising a minute
afterwards, with renewed vigour.
The nearest usher called for Elizabeth Tuppins; another one, at a
little distance off, demanded Elizabeth Jupkins; and a third rushed in
a breathless state into King Street, and screamed for Elizabeth Muffins
till he was hoarse.
Meanwhile Mrs. Cluppins, with the combined assistance of Mrs.
Bardell, Mrs. Sanders, Mr. Dodson, and Mr. Fogg, was hoisted into the
witness-box; and when she was safely perched on the top step, Mrs.
Bardell stood on the bottom one, with the pocket-handkerchief and
pattens in one hand, and a glass bottle that might hold about a quarter
of a pint of smelling-salts in the other, ready for any emergency. Mrs.
Sanders, whose eyes were intently fixed on the judge's face, planted
herself close by, with the large umbrella, keeping her right thumb
pressed on the spring with an earnest countenance, as if she were fully
prepared to put it up at a moment's notice.
'Mrs. Cluppins,' said Serjeant Buzfuz, 'pray compose yourself, ma'am.'
Of course, directly Mrs. Cluppins was desired to compose herself, she
sobbed with increased vehemence, and gave divers alarming manifestations
of an approaching fainting fit, or, as she afterwards said, of her
feelings being too many for her.
'Do you recollect, Mrs. Cluppins,' said Serjeant Buzfuz, after a few
unimportant questions--'do you recollect being in Mrs. Bardell's back
one pair of stairs, on one particular morning in July last, when she was
dusting Pickwick's apartment?'
'Yes, my Lord and jury, I do,' replied Mrs. Cluppins.
'Mr. Pickwick's sitting-room was the first-floor front, I believe?'
'Yes, it were, Sir,' replied Mrs. Cluppins.
'What were you doing in the back room, ma'am?' inquired the little
judge.
'My Lord and jury,' said Mrs. Cluppins, with interesting agitation, 'I
will not deceive you.'
'You had better not, ma'am,' said the little judge.
'I was there,' resumed Mrs. Cluppins, 'unbeknown to Mrs. Bardell; I
had been out with a little basket, gentlemen, to buy three pound of red
kidney pertaties, which was three pound tuppence ha'penny, when I see
Mrs. Bardell's street door on the jar.'
'On the what?' exclaimed the little judge.
'Partly open, my Lord,' said Serjeant Snubbin.
'She said on the jar,' said the little judge, with a cunning look.
'It's all the same, my Lord,' said Serjeant Snubbin. The little judge
looked doubtful, and said he'd make a note of it. Mrs. Cluppins then
resumed--
'I walked in, gentlemen, just to say good-mornin', and went, in a
permiscuous manner, upstairs, and into the back room. Gentlemen, there
was the sound of voices in the front room, and--'
'And you listened, I believe, Mrs. Cluppins?' said Serjeant Buzfuz.
'Beggin' your pardon, Sir,' replied Mrs. Cluppins, in a majestic manner,
'I would scorn the haction. The voices was very loud, Sir, and forced
themselves upon my ear.'
'Well, Mrs. Cluppins, you were not listening, but you heard the voices.
Was one of those voices Pickwick's?'
'Yes, it were, Sir.' And Mrs. Cluppins, after distinctly stating
that Mr. Pickwick addressed himself to Mrs. Bardell, repeated by slow
degrees, and by dint of many questions, the conversation with which our
readers are already acquainted.
The jury looked suspicious, and Mr. Serjeant Buzfuz smiled as he sat
down. They looked positively awful when Serjeant Snubbin intimated that
he should not cross-examine the witness, for Mr. Pickwick wished it to
be distinctly stated that it was due to her to say, that her account was
in substance correct.
Mrs. Cluppins having once broken the ice, thought it a favourable
opportunity for entering into a short dissertation on her own domestic
affairs; so she straightway proceeded to inform the court that she was
the mother of eight children at that present speaking, and that she
entertained confident expectations of presenting Mr. Cluppins with a
ninth, somewhere about that day six months. At this interesting point,
the little judge interposed most irascibly; and the effect of the
interposition was, that both the worthy lady and Mrs. Sanders were
politely taken out of court, under the escort of Mr. Jackson, without
further parley.
'Nathaniel Winkle!' said Mr. Skimpin.
'Here!' replied a feeble voice. Mr. Winkle entered the witness-box, and
having been duly sworn, bowed to the judge with considerable deference.
'Don't look at me, Sir,' said the judge sharply, in acknowledgment of
the salute; 'look at the jury.'
Mr. Winkle obeyed the mandate, and looked at the place where he thought
it most probable the jury might be; for seeing anything in his then
state of intellectual complication was wholly out of the question.
Mr. Winkle was then examined by Mr. Skimpin, who, being a promising
young man of two or three-and-forty, was of course anxious to confuse a
witness who was notoriously predisposed in favour of the other side, as
much as he could.
'Now, Sir,' said Mr. Skimpin, 'have the goodness to let his Lordship
know what your name is, will you?' and Mr. Skimpin inclined his head on
one side to listen with great sharpness to the answer, and glanced at
the jury meanwhile, as if to imply that he rather expected Mr. Winkle's
natural taste for perjury would induce him to give some name which did
not belong to him.
'Winkle,' replied the witness.
'What's your Christian name, Sir?' angrily inquired the little judge.
'Nathaniel, Sir.'
'Daniel--any other name?'
'Nathaniel, sir--my Lord, I mean.'
'Nathaniel Daniel, or Daniel Nathaniel?'
'No, my Lord, only Nathaniel--not Daniel at all.'
'What did you tell me it was Daniel for, then, sir?' inquired the judge.
'I didn't, my Lord,' replied Mr. Winkle.
'You did, Sir,' replied the judge, with a severe frown. 'How could I
have got Daniel on my notes, unless you told me so, Sir?' This argument
was, of course, unanswerable.
'Mr. Winkle has rather a short memory, my Lord,' interposed Mr. Skimpin,
with another glance at the jury. 'We shall find means to refresh it
before we have quite done with him, I dare say.'
'You had better be careful, Sir,' said the little judge, with a sinister
look at the witness.
Poor Mr. Winkle bowed, and endeavoured to feign an easiness of manner,
which, in his then state of confusion, gave him rather the air of a
disconcerted pickpocket.
'Now, Mr. Winkle,' said Mr. Skimpin, 'attend to me, if you please,
Sir; and let me recommend you, for your own sake, to bear in mind his
Lordship's injunctions to be careful. I believe you are a particular
friend of Mr. Pickwick, the defendant, are you not?'
'I have known Mr. Pickwick now, as well as I recollect at this moment,
nearly--'
'Pray, Mr. Winkle, do not evade the question. Are you, or are you not, a
particular friend of the defendant's?'
'I was just about to say, that--'
'Will you, or will you not, answer my question, Sir?' 'If you don't
answer the question, you'll be committed, Sir,' interposed the little
judge, looking over his note-book.
'Come, Sir,' said Mr. Skimpin, 'yes or no, if you please.'
'Yes, I am,' replied Mr. Winkle.
'Yes, you are. And why couldn't you say that at once, Sir? Perhaps you
know the plaintiff too? Eh, Mr. Winkle?'
'I don't know her; I've seen her.'
'Oh, you don't know her, but you've seen her? Now, have the goodness to
tell the gentlemen of the jury what you mean by that, Mr. Winkle.'
