assembly, continued to hammer away at the comic song in the most
melancholy strains imaginable.
Taking a man's nightcap from his brow by violent means, and adjusting
it on the head of an unknown gentleman, of dirty exterior, however
ingenious a witticism in itself, is unquestionably one of those which
come under the denomination of practical jokes. Viewing the matter
precisely in this light, Mr. Pickwick, without the slightest intimation
of his purpose, sprang vigorously out of bed, struck the Zephyr so smart
a blow in the chest as to deprive him of a considerable portion of the
commodity which sometimes bears his name, and then, recapturing his
nightcap, boldly placed himself in an attitude of defence.
'Now,' said Mr. Pickwick, gasping no less from excitement than from the
expenditure of so much energy, 'come on--both of you--both of you!' With
this liberal invitation the worthy gentleman communicated a revolving
motion to his clenched fists, by way of appalling his antagonists with a
display of science.
It might have been Mr. Pickwick's very unexpected gallantry, or it might
have been the complicated manner in which he had got himself out of
bed, and fallen all in a mass upon the hornpipe man, that touched his
adversaries. Touched they were; for, instead of then and there making
an attempt to commit man-slaughter, as Mr. Pickwick implicitly believed
they would have done, they paused, stared at each other a short time,
and finally laughed outright.
'Well, you're a trump, and I like you all the better for it,' said the
Zephyr. 'Now jump into bed again, or you'll catch the rheumatics. No
malice, I hope?' said the man, extending a hand the size of the yellow
clump of fingers which sometimes swings over a glover's door.
'Certainly not,' said Mr. Pickwick, with great alacrity; for, now that
the excitement was over, he began to feel rather cool about the legs.
'Allow me the H-onour,' said the gentleman with the whiskers, presenting
his dexter hand, and aspirating the h.
'With much pleasure, sir,' said Mr. Pickwick; and having executed a very
long and solemn shake, he got into bed again.
'My name is Smangle, sir,' said the man with the whiskers.
'Oh,' said Mr. Pickwick.
'Mine is Mivins,' said the man in the stockings.
'I am delighted to hear it, sir,' said Mr. Pickwick.
'Hem,' coughed Mr. Smangle.
'Did you speak, sir?' said Mr. Pickwick.
'No, I did not, sir,' said Mr. Smangle.
All this was very genteel and pleasant; and, to make matters still more
comfortable, Mr. Smangle assured Mr. Pickwick a great many more times
that he entertained a very high respect for the feelings of a gentleman;
which sentiment, indeed, did him infinite credit, as he could be in no
wise supposed to understand them.
'Are you going through the court, sir?' inquired Mr. Smangle. 'Through
the what?' said Mr. Pickwick.
'Through the court--Portugal Street--the Court for Relief of--You know.'
'Oh, no,' replied Mr. Pickwick. 'No, I am not.'
'Going out, perhaps?' suggested Mr. Mivins.
'I fear not,' replied Mr. Pickwick. 'I refuse to pay some damages, and
am here in consequence.'
'Ah,' said Mr. Smangle, 'paper has been my ruin.'
'A stationer, I presume, Sir?' said Mr. Pickwick innocently.
'Stationer! No, no; confound and curse me! Not so low as that. No trade.
When I say paper, I mean bills.'
'Oh, you use the word in that sense. I see,' said Mr. Pickwick. 'Damme!
A gentleman must expect reverses,' said Smangle. 'What of that? Here
am I in the Fleet Prison. Well; good. What then? I'm none the worse for
that, am I?'
'Not a bit,' replied Mr. Mivins. And he was quite right; for, so far
from Mr. Smangle being any the worse for it, he was something the
better, inasmuch as to qualify himself for the place, he had attained
gratuitous possession of certain articles of jewellery, which, long
before that, had found their way to the pawnbroker's.
'Well; but come,' said Mr. Smangle; 'this is dry work. Let's rinse
our mouths with a drop of burnt sherry; the last-comer shall stand it,
Mivins shall fetch it, and I'll help to drink it. That's a fair and
gentlemanlike division of labour, anyhow. Curse me!'
Unwilling to hazard another quarrel, Mr. Pickwick gladly assented to
the proposition, and consigned the money to Mr. Mivins, who, as it was
nearly eleven o'clock, lost no time in repairing to the coffee-room on
his errand.
'I say,' whispered Smangle, the moment his friend had left the room;
'what did you give him?'
'Half a sovereign,' said Mr. Pickwick.
'He's a devilish pleasant gentlemanly dog,' said Mr. Smangle;--'infernal
pleasant. I don't know anybody more so; but--' Here Mr. Smangle stopped
short, and shook his head dubiously.
'You don't think there is any probability of his appropriating the money
to his own use?' said Mr. Pickwick.
'Oh, no! Mind, I don't say that; I expressly say that he's a devilish
gentlemanly fellow,' said Mr. Smangle. 'But I think, perhaps, if
somebody went down, just to see that he didn't dip his beak into the jug
by accident, or make some confounded mistake in losing the money as he
came upstairs, it would be as well. Here, you sir, just run downstairs,
and look after that gentleman, will you?'
This request was addressed to a little timid-looking, nervous man, whose
appearance bespoke great poverty, and who had been crouching on his
bedstead all this while, apparently stupefied by the novelty of his
situation.
'You know where the coffee-room is,' said Smangle; 'just run down,
and tell that gentleman you've come to help him up with the jug.
Or--stop--I'll tell you what--I'll tell you how we'll do him,' said
Smangle, with a cunning look.
'How?' said Mr. Pickwick.
'Send down word that he's to spend the change in cigars. Capital
thought. Run and tell him that; d'ye hear? They shan't be wasted,'
continued Smangle, turning to Mr. Pickwick. 'I'LL smoke 'em.'
This manoeuvring was so exceedingly ingenious and, withal, performed
with such immovable composure and coolness, that Mr. Pickwick would have
had no wish to disturb it, even if he had had the power. In a short time
Mr. Mivins returned, bearing the sherry, which Mr. Smangle dispensed
in two little cracked mugs; considerately remarking, with reference
to himself, that a gentleman must not be particular under such
circumstances, and that, for his part, he was not too proud to drink out
of the jug. In which, to show his sincerity, he forthwith pledged the
company in a draught which half emptied it.
An excellent understanding having been by these means promoted, Mr.
Smangle proceeded to entertain his hearers with a relation of divers
romantic adventures in which he had been from time to time engaged,
involving various interesting anecdotes of a thoroughbred horse, and a
magnificent Jewess, both of surpassing beauty, and much coveted by the
nobility and gentry of these kingdoms.
Long before these elegant extracts from the biography of a gentleman
were concluded, Mr. Mivins had betaken himself to bed, and had set in
snoring for the night, leaving the timid stranger and Mr. Pickwick to
the full benefit of Mr. Smangle's experiences.
Nor were the two last-named gentlemen as much edified as they might have
been by the moving passages narrated. Mr. Pickwick had been in a state
of slumber for some time, when he had a faint perception of the drunken
man bursting out afresh with the comic song, and receiving from Mr.
Smangle a gentle intimation, through the medium of the water-jug, that
his audience was not musically disposed. Mr. Pickwick then once again
dropped off to sleep, with a confused consciousness that Mr. Smangle
was still engaged in relating a long story, the chief point of which
appeared to be that, on some occasion particularly stated and set forth,
he had 'done' a bill and a gentleman at the same time.
CHAPTER XLII. ILLUSTRATIVE, LIKE THE PRECEDING ONE, OF THE OLD PROVERB,
THAT ADVERSITY BRINGS A MAN ACQUAINTED WITH STRANGE BEDFELLOWS--LIKEWISE
CONTAINING Mr. PICKWICK'S EXTRAORDINARY AND STARTLING ANNOUNCEMENT TO
Mr. SAMUEL WELLER
When Mr. Pickwick opened his eyes next morning, the first object
upon which they rested was Samuel Weller, seated upon a small black
portmanteau, intently regarding, apparently in a condition of profound
abstraction, the stately figure of the dashing Mr. Smangle; while Mr.
Smangle himself, who was already partially dressed, was seated on his
bedstead, occupied in the desperately hopeless attempt of staring Mr.
Weller out of countenance. We say desperately hopeless, because Sam,
with a comprehensive gaze which took in Mr. Smangle's cap, feet, head,
face, legs, and whiskers, all at the same time, continued to look
steadily on, with every demonstration of lively satisfaction, but with
no more regard to Mr. Smangle's personal sentiments on the subject than
he would have displayed had he been inspecting a wooden statue, or a
straw-embowelled Guy Fawkes.
'Well; will you know me again?' said Mr. Smangle, with a frown.
'I'd svear to you anyveres, Sir,' replied Sam cheerfully.
'Don't be impertinent to a gentleman, Sir,' said Mr. Smangle.
'Not on no account,' replied Sam. 'If you'll tell me wen he wakes, I'll
be upon the wery best extra-super behaviour!' This observation, having a
remote tendency to imply that Mr. Smangle was no gentleman, kindled his
ire.
'Mivins!' said Mr. Smangle, with a passionate air.
'What's the office?' replied that gentleman from his couch.
'Who the devil is this fellow?'
''Gad,' said Mr. Mivins, looking lazily out from under the bed-clothes,
'I ought to ask YOU that. Hasn't he any business here?'
'No,' replied Mr. Smangle. 'Then knock him downstairs, and tell him not
to presume to get up till I come and kick him,' rejoined Mr. Mivins;
with this prompt advice that excellent gentleman again betook himself to
slumber.
The conversation exhibiting these unequivocal symptoms of verging on the
personal, Mr. Pickwick deemed it a fit point at which to interpose.
'Sam,' said Mr. Pickwick.
'Sir,' rejoined that gentleman.
'Has anything new occurred since last night?'
'Nothin' partickler, sir,' replied Sam, glancing at Mr. Smangle's
whiskers; 'the late prewailance of a close and confined atmosphere
has been rayther favourable to the growth of veeds, of an alarmin' and
sangvinary natur; but vith that 'ere exception things is quiet enough.'
'I shall get up,' said Mr. Pickwick; 'give me some clean things.'
Whatever hostile intentions Mr. Smangle might have entertained, his
thoughts were speedily diverted by the unpacking of the portmanteau; the
contents of which appeared to impress him at once with a most favourable
opinion, not only of Mr. Pickwick, but of Sam also, who, he took an
early opportunity of declaring in a tone of voice loud enough for that
eccentric personage to overhear, was a regular thoroughbred original,
and consequently the very man after his own heart. As to Mr. Pickwick,
the affection he conceived for him knew no limits.
'Now is there anything I can do for you, my dear Sir?' said Smangle.
'Nothing that I am aware of, I am obliged to you,' replied Mr. Pickwick.
'No linen that you want sent to the washerwoman's? I know a delightful
washerwoman outside, that comes for my things twice a week; and, by
Jove!--how devilish lucky!--this is the day she calls. Shall I put
any of those little things up with mine? Don't say anything about the
trouble. Confound and curse it! if one gentleman under a cloud is not to
put himself a little out of the way to assist another gentleman in the
same condition, what's human nature?'
Thus spake Mr. Smangle, edging himself meanwhile as near as possible
to the portmanteau, and beaming forth looks of the most fervent and
disinterested friendship.
'There's nothing you want to give out for the man to brush, my dear
creature, is there?' resumed Smangle.
'Nothin' whatever, my fine feller,' rejoined Sam, taking the reply into
his own mouth. 'P'raps if vun of us wos to brush, without troubling the
man, it 'ud be more agreeable for all parties, as the schoolmaster said
when the young gentleman objected to being flogged by the butler.'
'And there's nothing I can send in my little box to the washer-woman's,
is there?' said Smangle, turning from Sam to Mr. Pickwick, with an air
of some discomfiture.
'Nothin' whatever, Sir,' retorted Sam; 'I'm afeered the little box must
be chock full o' your own as it is.'
This speech was accompanied with such a very expressive look at that
particular portion of Mr. Smangle's attire, by the appearance of which
the skill of laundresses in getting up gentlemen's linen is generally
tested, that he was fain to turn upon his heel, and, for the present at
any rate, to give up all design on Mr. Pickwick's purse and wardrobe.
He accordingly retired in dudgeon to the racket-ground, where he made a
light and whole-some breakfast on a couple of the cigars which had been
purchased on the previous night. Mr. Mivins, who was no smoker, and
whose account for small articles of chandlery had also reached down
to the bottom of the slate, and been 'carried over' to the other side,
remained in bed, and, in his own words, 'took it out in sleep.'
