Page:The Posthumous Papers of the Pickwick Club.djvu/258

198 ^8 POSTHUMOUS PAPERS OF

Ijim I've spoilt his beadle, and that, if he'll sveurin a new 'nn, Til come ))ack agin to-morrow and spoil him. Drive on, old feller."

" I'll give directions for the commencement of an action for false imprisonment against this Captain Boldwig, directly I get to London^" said Mr. Pickwick, as soon as the carriage turned out of the town. ;

<' We were trespassing, it seems," said Wardle.

" I, don't care," said Mr. Pickwick, " I'll bring the action."

" No, you won't," said Wardle.

" I will, by — " but as there was a humorous expression in Wardle's fiicef Mr. Pickwick checked himself, and said — " Why not ? "

"Because," said old Wardle, half-bursting with laughter, *< because they might turn round on some of us, and say we had taken too much cold punch."

Do what he would, a smile would come into Mr. Pickwick's face ; the smile extended into a laugh, the laugh into a roar, and the roar became general. So, to keep up their good humour, they stopped at the first road-side tavern they came to, and ordered a glass of brandy and water all round, with a magnum of extra strength, for Mr. Samuel Weller.

SHOWING HOW DODSON AND FOGG WERE MEN OF BUSINESS, AND THEIR CLERKS MEN OF PLEASURE; AND HOW AN AFFECTING INTERVIEW TOOK PLACE BETWEEN MR. WELLER AND HIS LONG- LOST PARENT; SHOWING ALSO, WHAT CHOICE SPIRITS ASSEMBLED AT THE MAGPIE AND STUMP, AND WHAT A CAPITAL CHAPTER THE NEXT ONE WILL BE.}}

In the ground-floor front of a dingy house, at the very furthest end of Freeman's Court, Cornhill, sat the four clerks of Messrs. Dodson and Fogg, two of His Majesty's Attorneys of the Courts of King's Bench and Common Pleas at Westminster, and solicitors of the High Court of Chancery : the aforesaid clerks catching about as favourable glimpses of Heaven's light and Heaven's sun, in the course of their daily labours, as a man might hope to do, were he placed at the bottom of a reasonably Jc-ep well ; and without the opportunity of perceiving the stars in the day-time, which the latter secluded situation affords.

The clerks' office of Messrs, Dodson and Fogg was a dark, mouldy, earthy-smelling room, with a high wainscotted partition to screen the clerks from the vulgar gaze : a couple of old wooden chairs, a very loud- ticking clock, an almanack, an umbrella-stand, a row of hat pegs, and a few shelves, on which were deposited several ticketed bundles of dirty papers, some old deal boxes with paper labels, and sundry decayed stone ink bottles of various shapes and.sizes. There was a glass door leading into the passage which formed the entrance to the court, and on the outer side of this glass door, Mr. Pickwick, closely followed by Sam Weller, presented himself on the Friday morning succeeding the occur- rence, of which a faithful narration is given in the last chapter.

" Come in, can't you," cried a voice from behind the partition, in reply to Mr. Pickwick's gentle tap at the door. And Mr. Pickwick and Sara entered accordingly.