Page:The Posthumous Papers of the Pickwick Club.djvu/536

444 444 POSTHUMOUS PAPERS OF

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 quite stupified 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. " Fll smoke 'em."

This manoeuvring was so exceedingly ingenious, and, withal, per- formed with such immoveable composure and coolness, that Mr. Pick- wick 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 re- marking, with reference to himself, that a gentleman must not be par- ticular under such circumstances, and, for his part, he was not too proud to drink out of the jug ; in which, to show his sincerity, he forth- with pledged the company in a daught 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 thorough-bred 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 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 which were 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 were not musically disposed. He 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.