Page:The Posthumous Papers of the Pickwick Club.djvu/539

447 THE PICKWICK CLUB. 447

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, has the unspeak- able 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.

" Plenty of that, Mr. Pickvick. Your chummage ticket will be on twenty-seven, in the third."
 * ' Accommodation, eh ? " said that gentleman, consulting a large book ;

" 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.

chummage ticket upon twenty-seven in the third, and them as is in the room will be your chums."
 * ' Why," said Mr. Roker, " it's as plain as Salisbury. You'll have a


 * ' 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.

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.
 * ' A butcher," repeated Mr. Roker, giving the nib of his pen a tap on

" I should think so," replied the party addressed, with a strong em- phasis 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 window 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 bull-dog, 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 ap- peared of a taciturn and thoughtful cast, merely echoed the inquiry ; and 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 gentleman is ? " inquired Mr. Pick- wick, not very much gratified by this description of his future asso- ciates.

" What is that Simpson, Neddy ? " said Mr. Roker, turning to his companion.