Tales from Dickens Part 23

"If this be true," said the lady sobbing violently, "you will leave it instantly."

"Certainly, ma'am," answered Mr. Pickwick appearing, "I--I--am very sorry, ma'am."

The lady pointed to the door. With his hat on over his nightcap, his shoes in his hand and his coat over his arm, Mr. Pickwick opened the door, dropping both shoes with a crash. "I trust, ma'am," he resumed, bowing very low, "that my unblemished character--" but before he could finish the sentence the lady had thrust him into the hall and bolted the door.

Luckily Mr. Pickwick met, coming along the corridor, the faithful Sam Weller who took him safely to his room.

V

THE PICKWICKIANS FIND THEMSELVES IN THE GRASP OF THE LAW. THE FINAL EXPOSURE OF JINGLE, AND A CHRISTMAS MERRYMAKING

Mr. Pickwick was still indoors next morning, when Sam, strolling through the town, met, coming from a certain garden-gate, the wily Job Trotter.

Job tried at first to disguise himself by making a horrible face, but Sam was not to be deceived, and finding this trick vain, the other burst into tears of joy to see him.

Job told Sam that his master, Jingle, had bribed the mistress of the boarding-school to deny to Mr. Pickwick that she knew him, and had then cruelly deserted the beautiful young lady for a richer one. But this time Sam was too wise to believe anything Job said.

Meanwhile, in the inn, Mr. Pickwick was giving Mr. Peter Magnus some good advice as to the best method of proposing. The latter finally plucked up his courage, saw the lady, proposed to her, and was accepted.

In his grat.i.tude, he insisted on taking Mr. Pickwick to be introduced to her.

The instant he saw her, however, Mr. Pickwick uttered an exclamation, and the lady, with a slight scream, hid her face in her hands. She was none other than the owner of the room into which Mr. Pickwick had intruded the night before.

Mr. Peter Magnus, in astonishment, demanded where and when they had seen each other before. This the lady declared she would not reveal for the world, and Mr. Pickwick likewise refusing, the other flew into a jealous rage, which ended in his rushing from the room swearing he would challenge Mr. Pickwick to mortal combat. Tupman, Winkle and Snodgra.s.s being announced at that moment, Mr. Pickwick joined them, and the middle-aged lady was left alone in a state of terrible alarm.

The longer she thought the more terrified she became at the idea of possible bloodshed and harm to her lover. At length, overcome by dread, and knowing no other way to stop the duel, she hastened to the house of the mayor of the town, a pompous magistrate named Nupkins, and begged him to stop the duel. Not wishing to make trouble for Mr. Peter Magnus, she declared that the two rioters who threatened to disturb the peace of the town were named Pickwick and Tupman; these two, Nupkins, thinking them cutthroats from London, at once sent men to arrest.

Mr. Pickwick was just telling his followers the story of his mishap of the night before, when a half-dozen officers burst into the room.

Boiling with indignation, Mr. Pickwick had to submit, and the officers put him and Tupman into an old sedan-chair and carried them off, followed by Winkle and Snodgra.s.s and by all the town loafers.

Sam Weller met the procession and tried to rescue them, but was knocked down and taken prisoner also. So they were all brought to Nupkins's house.

The mayor refused to hear a word Mr. Pickwick said and was about to send them all to jail as desperate characters when Sam Weller called his master aside and whispered to him that the house they were in was the very one from which he had seen Job Trotter come, and from this fact he guessed that Jingle himself had wormed himself into the good graces of the mayor. At this Mr. Pickwick asked to have a private talk with Nupkins.

This was grudgingly granted and in a few moments Mr. Pickwick had learned that Jingle, calling himself "Captain Fitz-Marshall," had imposed so well on the pompous mayor that the latter's wife and daughter had introduced him everywhere and he himself had boasted to everybody of his acquaintance.

It was Nupkins's turn to feel humble when Mr. Pickwick told him Jingle's real character. He was terribly afraid the story would get out and that the town would laugh at him, so he became all at once tremendously polite, declared their arrest had been all a mistake and begged the Pickwickians to make themselves at home. Sam Weller was sent down to the kitchen to get his dinner, where he met a pretty housemaid named Mary, with whom he proceeded to fall very much in love for the first time in his life.

Jingle and Job walked into the trap a little later, not expecting the kind of reception they were to find there. But even before the combined scorn of Nupkins, Mrs. Nupkins, Miss Nupkins and the Pickwickians, Jingle showed a brazen front. He knew pride would prevent the mayor from exposing him, and when finally shown the door, he left with a mocking jeer, followed by the chuckling Job.

In spite of his own troubles Mr. Pickwick left Ipswich comforted by the defeat of Jingle. As for Sam, he kissed the pretty housemaid behind the door and they parted with mutual regrets.

To atone for these difficult adventures, the Pickwickians prepared for a long visit to Dingley Dell, where they spent an old-fashioned Merry Christmas; where they found the fat boy even fatter and Mr. Wardle even jollier; where Tupman was not saddened by the sight of his lost love, the spinster aunt, who had been sent to live with another relative; where Snodgra.s.s came more than ever to admire Emily, the pretty daughter; where Winkle fell head over ears in love with a black-eyed young lady visitor named Arabella Allen, who wore a nice little pair of boots with fur around the top; where they went skating and Mr. Pickwick broke through, and had to be carried home and put to bed; where they hung mistletoe and told stories, and altogether enjoyed themselves in a hundred ways.

Ben Allen, Arabella's brother, reached Dingley Dell on Christmas Day--a thick-set, mildewy young man, with short black hair, a long white face and spectacles. He was a medical student, and brought with him his chum, Bob Sawyer, a slovenly, smart, swaggering young gentleman, who smelled strongly of tobacco smoke and looked like a dissipated Robinson Crusoe.

Ben intended that his chum should marry his sister Arabella, and Bob Sawyer paid her so much attention that Winkle began to hate him on the spot.

The Christmas merrymaking was all too soon over, and as Mrs. Bardell's lawsuit against Mr. Pickwick was shortly to be tried, the Pickwickians returned regretfully to the city.

VI

THE CELEBRATED CASE OF BARBELL AGAINST PICKWICK.

SERGEANT BUZFUZ'S SPEECH AND AN UNEXPECTED VERDICT

On the morning of the trial Mr. Pickwick went to court certain that the outcome would be in his favor. The room was full of people, and all the Pickwickians were there when he arrived. The Judge was a very short man, so plump that he seemed all face and waistcoat. When he had rolled in upon two little turned legs, and sat down at his desk, all you could see of him was two little eyes, one broad pink face, and about half of a comical, big wig. Scarcely had the jurors taken their seats, when Mrs.

Bardell's lawyers brought in the lady herself, half hysterical, and supported by two tearful lady friends. The ushers called for silence and the trial began.

The lawyer who spoke for Mrs. Bardell was named Sergeant Buzfuz, a bl.u.s.tering man with a fat body and a red face. He began by picturing Mr.

Pickwick's housekeeper as a lonely widow who had been heartlessly deceived by the villainy of her lodger. He declared that for two years, Mrs. Bardell had attended to Mr. Pickwick's comforts, that once he had patted her little boy on the head and asked him how he would like to have another father; that he had also asked her to marry him, and on the same day had been seen by three of his friends holding her in his arms and soothing her agitation. Drawing forth two sc.r.a.ps of paper, Sergeant Buzfuz went on:

"Gentlemen, one word more. Two letters have pa.s.sed between these parties, which speak volumes. They are not open, fervent letters of affection. They are sly, underhanded communications evidently intended by Pickwick to mislead and delude any one into whose hands they might fall. Let me read the first: '_Dear Mrs. B.--Chops and tomato Sauce.

Yours, Pickwick._' Gentlemen, what does this mean? Chops! Gracious Heavens! and Tomato Sauce. Gentlemen, is the happiness of a trusting female to be trifled away by such shallow tricks? The next has no date.

'_Dear Mrs. B.--I shall not be at home till to-morrow._' And then follows this remarkable expression--'_Don't trouble yourself about the warming-pan._' The warming-pan! Why is Mrs. Bardell begged not to trouble herself about this warming-pan, unless (as is no doubt the case) it is a mere subst.i.tute for some endearing word or promise, cunningly used by Pickwick, with a view to his intended desertion?

"But enough of this, gentlemen. It is hard to smile with an aching heart. My client's hopes are ruined. All is gloom in the house; the child's sports are forgotten while his mother weeps. But Pickwick, gentlemen, Pickwick, the pitiless destroyer--Pickwick who comes before you to-day with his heartless tomato sauce and warming-pans--Pickwick still rears his head, and gazes without a sigh on the ruins he has made.

Damages, gentlemen, heavy damages is the only punishment with which you can visit him. And for these damages, my client now appeals to a high-minded, a right-feeling, a sympathizing jury of her countrymen!"

With this Sergeant Buzfuz stopped, and began to call his witnesses. The first was one of Mrs. Bardell's female cronies, whose testimony of course, was all in her favor.

Then Winkle was called. Knowing that he was a friend of Mr. Pickwick's, Mrs. Bardell's lawyers browbeat and puzzled him till poor Mr. Winkle had the air of a disconcerted pickpocket, and was in a terrible state of confusion. He was soon made to tell how, with Tupman and Snodgra.s.s, he had come into Mr. Pickwick's lodgings one day to find him holding Mrs.

Bardell in his arms. The other two Pickwickians were also compelled to testify to this.

Nor was this all. Sergeant Buzfuz finally entrapped the agonized Winkle into telling how Mr. Pickwick had been found at night in the wrong room at the Ipswich Inn and how as a result a lady's marriage had been broken off and the whole party arrested and taken before the mayor. Poor Winkle was obliged to tell this, though he knew it would hurt the case of Mr.

Pickwick. When he was released he rushed away to the nearest inn, where he was found some hours later by the waiter, groaning dismally with his head under the sofa cushions.

Mr. Pickwick's case looked black. The only comfort he received was from the testimony of Sam Weller, who tried to do Mrs. Bardell's side all possible harm yet say as little about his master as he could, and who kept the court room in a roar of laughter with his sallies.

"Do you mean to tell me, Mr. Weller," said Sergeant Buzfuz finally, "that you saw nothing of Mrs. Bardell's fainting in the arms of Mr.

Pickwick? Have you a pair of eyes, Mr. Weller?"

"Yes, I _have_ a pair of eyes," replied Sam, "and that's just it. If they was a pair o' patent-double-million-magnifyin'-gas-miscroscopes of hextra power, p'r'aps I might be able to see through a flight o' stairs and a deal door; but bein' only eyes, you see, my wision's limited."

Sergeant Buzfuz could make nothing out of Sam, and so the case for Mrs.

Bardell closed.

Mr. Pickwick's lawyer made a long speech in his favor, but it was of no use. The evidence seemed all against him. The jury found him guilty of breach of promise of marriage, and sentenced him to pay Mrs. Bardell her damages.

Mr. Pickwick was speechless with indignation. He vowed that not one penny would he ever pay if he spent the rest of his life in a jail. His own lawyer warned him that if he did not pay within two months, Mrs.

Bardell's lawyers could put him into the debtors' prison, but Mr.

Pickwick prepared to start on another excursion with his three friends, still declaring that he would never pay.

VII

WINKLE HAS AN EXCITING ADVENTURE WITH MR. DOWLER, AND WITH THE AID OF MR. PICKWICK AND SAM WELLER DISCOVERS THE WHEREABOUTS OF MISS ARABELLA ALLEN

At Bath, a resort very popular with people of fashion, the Pickwickians decided to spend the next two months, and started by coach at once, accompanied by Sam Weller. On the coach they fell in with a fierce-looking, abrupt gentleman named Dowler, with a bald, glossy forehead and large black whiskers, who introduced them to the society of Bath, particularly to Mr. Angelo Cyrus Bantam, master of ceremonies at the famous a.s.sembly-Room, where the fashionable b.a.l.l.s were held. Mr.

Bantam carried a gold eye-gla.s.s, a gold snuff-box, gold rings on his finger, a gold watch in his waistcoat pocket, a gold chain and an ebony cane with a gold head. His linen was the whitest, his wig the blackest, and his teeth were so fine that it was hard to tell the real ones from the false ones.

Mr. Bantam made the Pickwickians welcome and in three days' time they were settled in a fine house, where Mr. and Mrs. Dowler also lodged. Mr.