attendant than Sam. As soon as I get settled, I will write and let you
know, and I shall expect you immediately. Until then, good-bye.'
As Mr. Pickwick said this, he got into the coach which had by this time
arrived, followed by the tipstaff. Sam having stationed himself on the
box, it rolled away.
'A most extraordinary man that!' said Perker, as he stopped to pull on
his gloves.
'What a bankrupt he'd make, Sir,' observed Mr. Lowten, who was standing
near. 'How he would bother the commissioners! He'd set 'em at defiance
if they talked of committing him, Sir.'
The attorney did not appear very much delighted with his clerk's
professional estimate of Mr. Pickwick's character, for he walked away
without deigning any reply.
The hackney-coach jolted along Fleet Street, as hackney-coaches usually
do. The horses 'went better', the driver said, when they had anything
before them (they must have gone at a most extraordinary pace when
there was nothing), and so the vehicle kept behind a cart; when the cart
stopped, it stopped; and when the cart went on again, it did the same.
Mr. Pickwick sat opposite the tipstaff; and the tipstaff sat with his
hat between his knees, whistling a tune, and looking out of the coach
window.
Time performs wonders. By the powerful old gentleman's aid, even a
hackney-coach gets over half a mile of ground. They stopped at length,
and Mr. Pickwick alighted at the gate of the Fleet.
The tipstaff, just looking over his shoulder to see that his charge was
following close at his heels, preceded Mr. Pickwick into the prison;
turning to the left, after they had entered, they passed through an open
door into a lobby, from which a heavy gate, opposite to that by which
they had entered, and which was guarded by a stout turnkey with the key
in his hand, led at once into the interior of the prison.
Here they stopped, while the tipstaff delivered his papers; and here Mr.
Pickwick was apprised that he would remain, until he had undergone the
ceremony, known to the initiated as 'sitting for your portrait.'
'Sitting for my portrait?' said Mr. Pickwick.
'Having your likeness taken, sir,' replied the stout turnkey. 'We're
capital hands at likenesses here. Take 'em in no time, and always exact.
Walk in, sir, and make yourself at home.'
Mr. Pickwick complied with the invitation, and sat himself down; when
Mr. Weller, who stationed himself at the back of the chair, whispered
that the sitting was merely another term for undergoing an inspection
by the different turnkeys, in order that they might know prisoners from
visitors.
'Well, Sam,' said Mr. Pickwick, 'then I wish the artists would come.
This is rather a public place.'
'They von't be long, Sir, I des-say,' replied Sam. 'There's a Dutch
clock, sir.'
'So I see,' observed Mr. Pickwick.
'And a bird-cage, sir,' says Sam. 'Veels vithin veels, a prison in a
prison. Ain't it, Sir?'
As Mr. Weller made this philosophical remark, Mr. Pickwick was aware
that his sitting had commenced. The stout turnkey having been relieved
from the lock, sat down, and looked at him carelessly, from time to
time, while a long thin man who had relieved him, thrust his hands
beneath his coat tails, and planting himself opposite, took a good long
view of him. A third rather surly-looking gentleman, who had apparently
been disturbed at his tea, for he was disposing of the last remnant of
a crust and butter when he came in, stationed himself close to Mr.
Pickwick; and, resting his hands on his hips, inspected him narrowly;
while two others mixed with the group, and studied his features with
most intent and thoughtful faces. Mr. Pickwick winced a good deal under
the operation, and appeared to sit very uneasily in his chair; but he
made no remark to anybody while it was being performed, not even to
Sam, who reclined upon the back of the chair, reflecting, partly on the
situation of his master, and partly on the great satisfaction it would
have afforded him to make a fierce assault upon all the turnkeys there
assembled, one after the other, if it were lawful and peaceable so to
do.
At length the likeness was completed, and Mr. Pickwick was informed that
he might now proceed into the prison.
'Where am I to sleep to-night?' inquired Mr. Pickwick.
'Why, I don't rightly know about to-night,' replied the stout turnkey.
'You'll be chummed on somebody to-morrow, and then you'll be all snug
and comfortable. The first night's generally rather unsettled, but
you'll be set all squares to-morrow.'
After some discussion, it was discovered that one of the turnkeys had
a bed to let, which Mr. Pickwick could have for that night. He gladly
agreed to hire it.
'If you'll come with me, I'll show it you at once,' said the man. 'It
ain't a large 'un; but it's an out-and-outer to sleep in. This way,
sir.'
They passed through the inner gate, and descended a short flight of
steps. The key was turned after them; and Mr. Pickwick found himself,
for the first time in his life, within the walls of a debtors' prison.
CHAPTER XLI. WHAT BEFELL Mr. PICKWICK WHEN HE GOT INTO THE FLEET; WHAT
PRISONERS HE SAW THERE, AND HOW HE PASSED THE NIGHT
Mr. Tom Roker, the gentleman who had accompanied Mr. Pickwick into the
prison, turned sharp round to the right when he got to the bottom of
the little flight of steps, and led the way, through an iron gate which
stood open, and up another short flight of steps, into a long narrow
gallery, dirty and low, paved with stone, and very dimly lighted by a
window at each remote end.
'This,' said the gentleman, thrusting his hands into his pockets, and
looking carelessly over his shoulder to Mr. Pickwick--'this here is the
hall flight.'
'Oh,' replied Mr. Pickwick, looking down a dark and filthy staircase,
which appeared to lead to a range of damp and gloomy stone vaults,
beneath the ground, 'and those, I suppose, are the little cellars where
the prisoners keep their small quantities of coals. Unpleasant places to
have to go down to; but very convenient, I dare say.'
'Yes, I shouldn't wonder if they was convenient,' replied the gentleman,
'seeing that a few people live there, pretty snug. That's the Fair, that
is.'
'My friend,' said Mr. Pickwick, 'you don't really mean to say that human
beings live down in those wretched dungeons?'
'Don't I?' replied Mr. Roker, with indignant astonishment; 'why
shouldn't I?'
'Live!--live down there!' exclaimed Mr. Pickwick.
'Live down there! Yes, and die down there, too, very often!' replied Mr.
Roker; 'and what of that? Who's got to say anything agin it? Live down
there! Yes, and a wery good place it is to live in, ain't it?'
As Roker turned somewhat fiercely upon Mr. Pickwick in saying this, and
moreover muttered in an excited fashion certain unpleasant invocations
concerning his own eyes, limbs, and circulating fluids, the latter
gentleman deemed it advisable to pursue the discourse no further. Mr.
Roker then proceeded to mount another staircase, as dirty as that which
led to the place which has just been the subject of discussion, in which
ascent he was closely followed by Mr. Pickwick and Sam.
'There,' said Mr. Roker, pausing for breath when they reached
another gallery of the same dimensions as the one below, 'this is the
coffee-room flight; the one above's the third, and the one above that's
the top; and the room where you're a-going to sleep to-night is the
warden's room, and it's this way--come on.' Having said all this in a
breath, Mr. Roker mounted another flight of stairs with Mr. Pickwick and
Sam Weller following at his heels.
These staircases received light from sundry windows placed at some
little distance above the floor, and looking into a gravelled area
bounded by a high brick wall, with iron CHEVAUX-DE-FRISE at the
top. This area, it appeared from Mr. Roker's statement, was the
racket-ground; and it further appeared, on the testimony of the same
gentleman, that there was a smaller area in that portion of the prison
which was nearest Farringdon Street, denominated and called 'the Painted
Ground,' from the fact of its walls having once displayed the semblance
of various men-of-war in full sail, and other artistical effects
achieved in bygone times by some imprisoned draughtsman in his leisure
hours.
Having communicated this piece of information, apparently more for the
purpose of discharging his bosom of an important fact, than with any
specific view of enlightening Mr. Pickwick, the guide, having at length
reached another gallery, led the way into a small passage at the extreme
end, opened a door, and disclosed an apartment of an appearance by no
means inviting, containing eight or nine iron bedsteads.
'There,' said Mr. Roker, holding the door open, and looking triumphantly
round at Mr. Pickwick, 'there's a room!'
Mr. Pickwick's face, however, betokened such a very trifling portion of
satisfaction at the appearance of his lodging, that Mr. Roker looked,
for a reciprocity of feeling, into the countenance of Samuel Weller,
who, until now, had observed a dignified silence. 'There's a room, young
man,' observed Mr. Roker.
'I see it,' replied Sam, with a placid nod of the head.
'You wouldn't think to find such a room as this in the Farringdon Hotel,
would you?' said Mr. Roker, with a complacent smile.
To this Mr. Weller replied with an easy and unstudied closing of one
eye; which might be considered to mean, either that he would have
thought it, or that he would not have thought it, or that he had
never thought anything at all about it, as the observer's imagination
suggested. Having executed this feat, and reopened his eye, Mr. Weller
proceeded to inquire which was the individual bedstead that Mr. Roker
had so flatteringly described as an out-and-outer to sleep in.
'That's it,' replied Mr. Roker, pointing to a very rusty one in a
corner. 'It would make any one go to sleep, that bedstead would, whether
they wanted to or not.'
'I should think,' said Sam, eyeing the piece of furniture in question
with a look of excessive disgust--'I should think poppies was nothing to
it.'
'Nothing at all,' said Mr. Roker.
'And I s'pose,' said Sam, with a sidelong glance at his master, as if to
see whether there were any symptoms of his determination being shaken
by what passed, 'I s'pose the other gen'l'men as sleeps here ARE
gen'l'men.'
'Nothing but it,' said Mr. Roker. 'One of 'em takes his twelve pints of
ale a day, and never leaves off smoking even at his meals.'
'He must be a first-rater,' said Sam.
'A1,' replied Mr. Roker.
Nothing daunted, even by this intelligence, Mr. Pickwick smilingly
announced his determination to test the powers of the narcotic bedstead
for that night; and Mr. Roker, after informing him that he could retire
to rest at whatever hour he thought proper, without any further notice
or formality, walked off, leaving him standing with Sam in the gallery.
It was getting dark; that is to say, a few gas jets were kindled in this
place which was never light, by way of compliment to the evening, which
had set in outside. As it was rather warm, some of the tenants of the
numerous little rooms which opened into the gallery on either hand, had
set their doors ajar. Mr. Pickwick peeped into them as he passed along,
with great curiosity and interest. Here, four or five great hulking
fellows, just visible through a cloud of tobacco smoke, were engaged
in noisy and riotous conversation over half-emptied pots of beer, or
playing at all-fours with a very greasy pack of cards. In the adjoining
room, some solitary tenant might be seen poring, by the light of a
feeble tallow candle, over a bundle of soiled and tattered papers,
yellow with dust and dropping to pieces from age, writing, for the
hundredth time, some lengthened statement of his grievances, for the
perusal of some great man whose eyes it would never reach, or whose
heart it would never touch. In a third, a man, with his wife and a whole
crowd of children, might be seen making up a scanty bed on the ground,
or upon a few chairs, for the younger ones to pass the night in. And in
a fourth, and a fifth, and a sixth, and a seventh, the noise, and the
beer, and the tobacco smoke, and the cards, all came over again in
greater force than before.
In the galleries themselves, and more especially on the stair-cases,
there lingered a great number of people, who came there, some because
their rooms were empty and lonesome, others because their rooms
were full and hot; the greater part because they were restless and
uncomfortable, and not possessed of the secret of exactly knowing what
to do with themselves. There were many classes of people here, from the
labouring man in his fustian jacket, to the broken-down spendthrift in
his shawl dressing-gown, most appropriately out at elbows; but there
was the same air about them all--a kind of listless, jail-bird, careless
swagger, a vagabondish who's-afraid sort of bearing, which is wholly
indescribable in words, but which any man can understand in one moment
if he wish, by setting foot in the nearest debtors' prison, and looking
at the very first group of people he sees there, with the same interest
as Mr. Pickwick did.
'It strikes me, Sam,' said Mr. Pickwick, leaning over the iron rail
at the stair-head-'it strikes me, Sam, that imprisonment for debt is
scarcely any punishment at all.'
'Think not, sir?' inquired Mr. Weller.
