Page:The Posthumous Papers of the Pickwick Club.djvu/184

132 132 POSTHUMOUS PAPERS OF

with a storm of delight, which, with a bell-accompaniment, rendered the remainder of his speech inaudible, with the exception of the con- cluding sentence, in which he thanked the meeting- for the patient attention with which they had heard him throughout, — an expression of gratitude which elicited another burst of mirth, of about a quarter of an hour's duration.

Next, a tall thin gentleman, in a very stiff white neckerchief, after being repeatedly desired by the crowd to " send a boy home, to ask whether he hadn't left his woice under the pillow," begged to nominate a iit and proper person to represent them in Parliament. And when he said i-t was Horatio Fizkin, Esquire, of Fizkin Lodge, near Eatanswill, the Fizkinites applauded, and the Slumkeyites groaned, so long, and so loudly, that both he and the seconder might have sung comic songs in lieu of speaking, without anybody's being a bit the wiser.

The friends of- Horatio Fizkin, Esquire, having had their innings, a little choleric, pink-faced man stood forward to propose another fit and proper person to represent the electors of Eatanswill in Parliament; and very swimmingly the pink-faced gentleman would have got on, if he had not been rather too choleric to entertain a sufficient perception of the fun of the crowd. But after a very few sentences of figurative eloquence, the pink-faced gentleman got from denouncing those who interrupted him in the mob, to exchanging defiances with the gentle-* men on the hustings ; whereupon arose an uproar which reduced him to the necessity of expressing his feelings by serious pantomime, which he did, and then left the stage to his seconder, who delivered a written speech of half an hour's length, and wouldn't be stopped, because he had sent it all to the Eatanswill Gazette, and the Eatanswill Gazette had printed it, every word.

Then Horatio Fizkin, Esquire, of Fizkin Lodge, near Eatanswill, presented himself for the purpose of addressing the electors ; which he no sooner did, than the band employed by the honourable Samuel Slumkey, commenced performing with a power to which their strength in the morning was a trifle ; in return for which, the Buff crowd bela- boured the heads and shoulders of the Blue crowd ; on which the Blue crowd endeavoured to dispossess themselves of their very unpleasant neighbours the Buff crowd ; and a scene of struggling, and pushing, and fighting, succeeded, to which we can no more do justice than the Mayor could, although he issued imperative orders to twelve constables to seize the ring-leaders, who might amount in number to two hundred and fifty, or thereabouts. At all these encounters, Horatio Fizkin, Esquire, of Fizkin Lodge, and his friends, waxed fierce and furious ; until at last Horatio Fizkin, Esquire, of Fizkin Lodge, begged to ask his opponent, the honourable Samuel Slumkey, of Slumkey Hall, whether that band played by his consent ; which question the honourable Samuel Slumkey declining to answer, Horatio Fizkin, Esquire, of Fizkin Lodge, shook his fist in the countenance of the honourable Samuel Slumkey, of Slumkey Hall ; upon which the honourable Samuel Slumkey, his blood being up, defied Horatio Fizkin, Esquire, to mortal combat. At this violation of all known rules and ])recedents of order, the Mayor commanded another fantasia on the 1 ^11;, ud declared that he would