After breakfasting in a small closet attached to the coffee-room, which
bore the imposing title of the Snuggery, the temporary inmate of which,
in consideration of a small additional charge, had the unspeakable
advantage of overhearing all the conversation in the coffee-room
aforesaid; and, after despatching Mr. Weller on some necessary errands,
Mr. Pickwick repaired to the lodge, to consult Mr. Roker concerning his
future accommodation.
'Accommodation, eh?' said that gentleman, consulting a large book.
'Plenty of that, Mr. Pickwick. Your chummage ticket will be on
twenty-seven, in the third.'
'Oh,' said Mr. Pickwick. 'My what, did you say?'
'Your chummage ticket,' replied Mr. Roker; 'you're up to that?'
'Not quite,' replied Mr. Pickwick, with a smile.
'Why,' said Mr. Roker, 'it's as plain as Salisbury. You'll have a
chummage ticket upon twenty-seven in the third, and them as is in the
room will be your chums.'
'Are there many of them?' inquired Mr. Pickwick dubiously.
'Three,' replied Mr. Roker.
Mr. Pickwick coughed.
'One of 'em's a parson,' said Mr. Roker, filling up a little piece of
paper as he spoke; 'another's a butcher.'
'Eh?' exclaimed Mr. Pickwick.
'A butcher,' repeated Mr. Roker, giving the nib of his pen a tap on the
desk to cure it of a disinclination to mark. 'What a thorough-paced
goer he used to be sure-ly! You remember Tom Martin, Neddy?' said Roker,
appealing to another man in the lodge, who was paring the mud off his
shoes with a five-and-twenty-bladed pocket-knife.
'I should think so,' replied the party addressed, with a strong emphasis
on the personal pronoun.
'Bless my dear eyes!' said Mr. Roker, shaking his head slowly from side
to side, and gazing abstractedly out of the grated windows before him,
as if he were fondly recalling some peaceful scene of his early
youth; 'it seems but yesterday that he whopped the coal-heaver down
Fox-under-the-Hill by the wharf there. I think I can see him now,
a-coming up the Strand between the two street-keepers, a little sobered
by the bruising, with a patch o' winegar and brown paper over his
right eyelid, and that 'ere lovely bulldog, as pinned the little boy
arterwards, a-following at his heels. What a rum thing time is, ain't
it, Neddy?'
The gentleman to whom these observations were addressed, who appeared
of a taciturn and thoughtful cast, merely echoed the inquiry; Mr. Roker,
shaking off the poetical and gloomy train of thought into which he had
been betrayed, descended to the common business of life, and resumed his
pen.
'Do you know what the third gentlemen is?' inquired Mr. Pickwick, not
very much gratified by this description of his future associates.
'What is that Simpson, Neddy?' said Mr. Roker, turning to his companion.
'What Simpson?' said Neddy.
'Why, him in twenty-seven in the third, that this gentleman's going to
be chummed on.'
'Oh, him!' replied Neddy; 'he's nothing exactly. He WAS a horse
chaunter: he's a leg now.'
'Ah, so I thought,' rejoined Mr. Roker, closing the book, and placing
the small piece of paper in Mr. Pickwick's hands. 'That's the ticket,
sir.'
Very much perplexed by this summary disposition of this person, Mr.
Pickwick walked back into the prison, revolving in his mind what he had
better do. Convinced, however, that before he took any other steps it
would be advisable to see, and hold personal converse with, the three
gentlemen with whom it was proposed to quarter him, he made the best of
his way to the third flight.
After groping about in the gallery for some time, attempting in the
dim light to decipher the numbers on the different doors, he at
length appealed to a pot-boy, who happened to be pursuing his morning
occupation of gleaning for pewter.
'Which is twenty-seven, my good fellow?' said Mr. Pickwick.
'Five doors farther on,' replied the pot-boy. 'There's the likeness of a
man being hung, and smoking the while, chalked outside the door.'
Guided by this direction, Mr. Pickwick proceeded slowly along the
gallery until he encountered the 'portrait of a gentleman,' above
described, upon whose countenance he tapped, with the knuckle of his
forefinger--gently at first, and then audibly. After repeating this
process several times without effect, he ventured to open the door and
peep in.
There was only one man in the room, and he was leaning out of window as
far as he could without overbalancing himself, endeavouring, with great
perseverance, to spit upon the crown of the hat of a personal friend on
the parade below. As neither speaking, coughing, sneezing, knocking, nor
any other ordinary mode of attracting attention, made this person aware
of the presence of a visitor, Mr. Pickwick, after some delay, stepped
up to the window, and pulled him gently by the coat tail. The individual
brought in his head and shoulders with great swiftness, and surveying
Mr. Pickwick from head to foot, demanded in a surly tone what
the--something beginning with a capital H--he wanted.
'I believe,' said Mr. Pickwick, consulting his ticket--'I believe this
is twenty-seven in the third?'
'Well?' replied the gentleman.
'I have come here in consequence of receiving this bit of paper,'
rejoined Mr. Pickwick.
'Hand it over,' said the gentleman.
Mr. Pickwick complied.
'I think Roker might have chummed you somewhere else,' said Mr. Simpson
(for it was the leg), after a very discontented sort of a pause.
Mr. Pickwick thought so also; but, under all the circumstances, he
considered it a matter of sound policy to be silent. Mr. Simpson mused
for a few moments after this, and then, thrusting his head out of the
window, gave a shrill whistle, and pronounced some word aloud, several
times. What the word was, Mr. Pickwick could not distinguish; but he
rather inferred that it must be some nickname which distinguished Mr.
Martin, from the fact of a great number of gentlemen on the ground
below, immediately proceeding to cry 'Butcher!' in imitation of the tone
in which that useful class of society are wont, diurnally, to make their
presence known at area railings.
Subsequent occurrences confirmed the accuracy of Mr. Pickwick's
impression; for, in a few seconds, a gentleman, prematurely broad for
his years, clothed in a professional blue jean frock and top-boots with
circular toes, entered the room nearly out of breath, closely followed
by another gentleman in very shabby black, and a sealskin cap. The
latter gentleman, who fastened his coat all the way up to his chin by
means of a pin and a button alternately, had a very coarse red face, and
looked like a drunken chaplain; which, indeed, he was.
These two gentlemen having by turns perused Mr. Pickwick's billet,
the one expressed his opinion that it was 'a rig,' and the other his
conviction that it was 'a go.' Having recorded their feelings in these
very intelligible terms, they looked at Mr. Pickwick and each other in
awkward silence.
'It's an aggravating thing, just as we got the beds so snug,' said
the chaplain, looking at three dirty mattresses, each rolled up in
a blanket; which occupied one corner of the room during the day, and
formed a kind of slab, on which were placed an old cracked basin, ewer,
and soap-dish, of common yellow earthenware, with a blue flower--'very
aggravating.'
Mr. Martin expressed the same opinion in rather stronger terms; Mr.
Simpson, after having let a variety of expletive adjectives loose
upon society without any substantive to accompany them, tucked up his
sleeves, and began to wash the greens for dinner.
While this was going on, Mr. Pickwick had been eyeing the room, which
was filthily dirty, and smelt intolerably close. There was no vestige
of either carpet, curtain, or blind. There was not even a closet in it.
Unquestionably there were but few things to put away, if there had been
one; but, however few in number, or small in individual amount, still,
remnants of loaves and pieces of cheese, and damp towels, and scrags
of meat, and articles of wearing apparel, and mutilated crockery, and
bellows without nozzles, and toasting-forks without prongs, do present
somewhat of an uncomfortable appearance when they are scattered about
the floor of a small apartment, which is the common sitting and sleeping
room of three idle men.
'I suppose this can be managed somehow,' said the butcher, after
a pretty long silence. 'What will you take to go out?' 'I beg your
pardon,' replied Mr. Pickwick. 'What did you say? I hardly understand
you.'
'What will you take to be paid out?' said the butcher. 'The regular
chummage is two-and-six. Will you take three bob?'
'And a bender,' suggested the clerical gentleman.
'Well, I don't mind that; it's only twopence a piece more,' said Mr.
Martin. 'What do you say, now? We'll pay you out for three-and-sixpence
a week. Come!'
'And stand a gallon of beer down,' chimed in Mr. Simpson. 'There!'
'And drink it on the spot,' said the chaplain. 'Now!'
'I really am so wholly ignorant of the rules of this place,' returned
Mr. Pickwick, 'that I do not yet comprehend you. Can I live anywhere
else? I thought I could not.'
At this inquiry Mr. Martin looked, with a countenance of excessive
surprise, at his two friends, and then each gentleman pointed with his
right thumb over his left shoulder. This action imperfectly described in
words by the very feeble term of 'over the left,' when performed by any
number of ladies or gentlemen who are accustomed to act in unison, has
a very graceful and airy effect; its expression is one of light and
playful sarcasm.
'CAN you!' repeated Mr. Martin, with a smile of pity.
'Well, if I knew as little of life as that, I'd eat my hat and swallow
the buckle whole,' said the clerical gentleman.
'So would I,' added the sporting one solemnly.
After this introductory preface, the three chums informed Mr. Pickwick,
in a breath, that money was, in the Fleet, just what money was out of
it; that it would instantly procure him almost anything he desired; and
that, supposing he had it, and had no objection to spend it, if he only
signified his wish to have a room to himself, he might take possession
of one, furnished and fitted to boot, in half an hour's time.
With this the parties separated, very much to their common satisfaction;
Mr. Pickwick once more retracing his steps to the lodge, and the three
companions adjourning to the coffee-room, there to spend the five
shillings which the clerical gentleman had, with admirable prudence and
foresight, borrowed of him for the purpose.
'I knowed it!' said Mr. Roker, with a chuckle, when Mr. Pickwick stated
the object with which he had returned. 'Didn't I say so, Neddy?'
The philosophical owner of the universal penknife growled an
affirmative.
'I knowed you'd want a room for yourself, bless you!' said Mr. Roker.
'Let me see. You'll want some furniture. You'll hire that of me, I
suppose? That's the reg'lar thing.'
'With great pleasure,' replied Mr. Pickwick.
'There's a capital room up in the coffee-room flight, that belongs to a
Chancery prisoner,' said Mr. Roker. 'It'll stand you in a pound a week.
I suppose you don't mind that?'
'Not at all,' said Mr. Pickwick.
'Just step there with me,' said Roker, taking up his hat with great
alacrity; 'the matter's settled in five minutes. Lord! why didn't you
say at first that you was willing to come down handsome?'
The matter was soon arranged, as the turnkey had foretold. The Chancery
prisoner had been there long enough to have lost his friends, fortune,
home, and happiness, and to have acquired the right of having a room
to himself. As he laboured, however, under the inconvenience of often
wanting a morsel of bread, he eagerly listened to Mr. Pickwick's
proposal to rent the apartment, and readily covenanted and agreed
to yield him up the sole and undisturbed possession thereof, in
consideration of the weekly payment of twenty shillings; from which fund
he furthermore contracted to pay out any person or persons that might be
chummed upon it.
As they struck the bargain, Mr. Pickwick surveyed him with a painful
interest. He was a tall, gaunt, cadaverous man, in an old greatcoat and
slippers, with sunken cheeks, and a restless, eager eye. His lips were
bloodless, and his bones sharp and thin. God help him! the iron teeth
of confinement and privation had been slowly filing him down for twenty
years.
'And where will you live meanwhile, Sir?' said Mr. Pickwick, as he laid
the amount of the first week's rent, in advance, on the tottering table.
The man gathered up the money with a trembling hand, and replied that he
didn't know yet; he must go and see where he could move his bed to.
'I am afraid, sir,' said Mr. Pickwick, laying his hand gently and
compassionately on his arm--'I am afraid you will have to live in some
noisy, crowded place. Now, pray, consider this room your own when you
want quiet, or when any of your friends come to see you.'
'Friends!' interposed the man, in a voice which rattled in his throat.
'if I lay dead at the bottom of the deepest mine in the world; tight
screwed down and soldered in my coffin; rotting in the dark and filthy
ditch that drags its slime along, beneath the foundations of this
prison; I could not be more forgotten or unheeded than I am here. I am
