Page:The Posthumous Papers of the Pickwick Club.djvu/656

552 652 POSTHUMOUS PAPERS OF

falsehood, perjury, treachery, and cant," said Slurk, handing the paper to Bob, " you will, perhaps, be somewhat repaid by a laugh at the style of this ungrammatical twaddler."

'* What's that you said. Sir?" inquired Pott, looking up, trembling all over with passion.

'' What's that to you, Sir ? " replied Slurk.

" Ungrammatical twaddler, was it, Sir ?" said Pott.

" Yes, Sir, it was," replied Slurk; '''and blue bore, Sir, if you like that better; ha! ha!''

Mr. Pott retorted not a word to this jocose insult, but deliberately folding up his copy of the Independent, flattened it carefully down, crushed it beneath his boot, spat upon^ it with great ceremony, and flung it into the fire.

" There, Sir," said Pott, retreating from the stove, " and that's the way I would serve the viper who produces it, if I were not, fortunately for him, restrained by the laws of my country."

never be appealed to by him, Sir, in such a case. Serve him so. Sir !'*
 * ' Serve him so. Sir !" cried Slurk, starting up : " those laws shnll

" Hear ! hear ! '' said Bob Sawyer.


 * ' Nothing can be fairer," observed Mr. Ben Allen.


 * ' Serve him so. Sir ! " reiterated Slurk, in a loud voice.

Mr. Pott darted a look of contempt, which might have withered an anchor.

" Serve him so. Sir !" reiterated Slurk, in a louder voice than before.


 * ' I will not, Sir ;" rejoined Pott.

" Oh, you won't !, won't you. Sir?" said Mr. Slurk, in a taunting manner ; " you hear this, gentlemen ! He won't ; not that he's afraid ; oh, no ! he wonH, Ha ! ha ! "

" I consider you. Sir," said Mr. Pott, moved by this sarcasm, " I consider you a viper. I look upon. Sir, you as a man who has placed himself beyond the pale of society, by his most audacious, disgraceful, and abominable public conduct. I view you. Sir, personally or po- litically, in no other light but as a most unparalleled and unmiti- gated viper.''

The indignant Independent did not wait to hear the end of this personal denunciation, for, catching up his carpet-bag, which was well stuffed with moveables, he swung it in the air as Pott turned away, and letting it fall with a circular sweep on his head just at that particular angle of the bag where a good thick hair-brush happened to be packed, caused a sharp crash to be heard throughout the kitchen, and brought him at once to the ground.

" Gentlemen," cried Mr. Pickwick, as Pott started up and seized the fire-shovel, " gentlemen, consider for Heaven's sake — help — Sam — here — pray, gentlemen — interfere, somebody."

Uttering these incoherent exclamations, Mr. Pickwick rushed between the infuriated combatants just in time to receive the carpet bag on one side of his body, and the fire-shovel on the other ; whether the representatives of the public feeling of Eatanswill were blinded by animosity, or, being both acute reasoners, saw the advantage of having a third party between them to bear all the blows, certain it is