Page:Works of Charles Dickens, ed. Lang - Volume 1.djvu/486

 as he saw that Mr. Nupkins was about to offer a very indignant interruption, "because, if he be, I know that person to be a—"

"Hush, hush," said Mr. Nupkins, closing the door. "Know. him to be what, sir?"

"An unprincipled adventurer—a dishonourable character—a man who preys upon society, and makes easily-deceived people his dupes, sir; his absurd, his foolish, his wretched dupes, sir," said the excited Mr. Pickwick.

"Dear me," said Mr. Nupkins, turning very red, and altering his whole manner directly. "Dear me, Mr. —"

"Pickvick," said Sam.

"Pickwick," said the magistrate, "dear me, Mr. Pickwick—pray take a seat—you cannot mean this? Captain Fitz-Marshall?"

"Don't call him a cap'en," said Sam, "nor Fitz-Marshall neither; he ain't neither one nor t'other. He's a strolling actor, he is, and his name's Jingle; and if ever there was a wolf in a mulberry suit, that ere Job Trotter 's him."

"It is very true, sir," said Mr. Pickwick, replying to the magistrate's look of amazement; "my only business in this town, is to expose the person of whom we now speak."

Mr. Pickwick proceeded to pour into the horror-stricken ear of Mr. Nupkins, an abridged account of Mr. Jingle's atrocities. He related how he had first met him; how he had eloped with Miss Wardle; how he had cheerfully resigned the lady for a pecuniary consideration; how he had entrapped himself into a lady's boarding-school at midnight; and how he (Mr. Pickwick) now felt it his duty to expose his is assumption of his present name and rank.

As the narrative proceeded, all the warm blood in the body of Mr. Nupkins tingled up into the very tips of his ears. He had picked up the captain at a neighbouring race-course. Charmed with his long list of aristocratic acquaintance, his extensive travel, and his fashionable demeanour, Mrs. Nupkins and Miss Nupkins had exhibited Captain Fitz-Marshall, and