Tales from Dickens - Charles Dickens (free books to read .txt) 📗

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 blustering 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 scraps of paper, Sergeant Buzfuz went on:

"Gentlemen, one word more. Two letters have passed 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 substitute 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 Snodgrass, 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 Assembly-Room, where the fashionable balls were held. Mr. Bantam carried a gold eye-glass, 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. Pickwick passed his days in drinking the spring-water for which Bath was famous, and in walking; his evenings he spent at the Assembly balls, at the theater or in making entries in his journal.

One evening Mrs. Dowler was carried off to a party in her sedan-chair, leaving her husband to sit up for her. The Pickwickians had long since gone to bed, and Mr. Dowler fell fast asleep while he waited. It was a very windy night and the sedan-carriers, who brought the lady home, knocked in vain at the door. Mr. Dowler did not wake, though they knocked like an insane postman.

At length Winkle in his own room was roused by the racket. He donned slippers and dressing-gown, hurried down stairs half asleep and opened the door. At the glare of the torches he jumped to the conclusion that the house was on fire and rushed outside, when the door blew shut behind him.

Seeing a lady's face at the window of the sedan-chair, he turned and knocked at the door frantically, but with no response. He was undressed and the wind blew his dressing-gown in a most unpleasant manner. "There are people coming down the street now. There are ladies with 'em; cover me up with something! Stand before me!" roared Winkle, but the chairmen only laughed. The ladies were nearer and in desperation he bolted into the sedan-chair where Mrs. Dowler was.

Now Mr. Dowler, a moment before, had bounced off the bed, and now threw open the window just in time to see this. He thought his wife was running away with another man, and seizing a supper knife, the indignant husband tore into the street, shouting furiously.

Winkle, hearing his horrible threats, did not wait. He leaped out of the sedan-chair and took to his heels, hotly pursued by Dowler. He dodged his pursuer at length, rushed back, slammed the door in Dowler's face, gained his bedroom, barricaded his door with furniture and packed his belongings. At the first streak of dawn, he slipped out and took coach for Bristol.

Mr. Pickwick was greatly vexed over Winkle's unheroic flight. Sam Weller soon discovered where he had gone, and Mr. Pickwick sent him after the fugitive, bidding him find Winkle and either compel him to return or keep him in sight until Mr. Pickwick himself could follow.

Winkle, meanwhile, walking about the Bristol streets, chanced to stop at a doctor's office to make some inquiries, and in a young medical gentleman in green spectacles recognized, to his huge surprise, Bob Sawyer, the bosom friend of Ben Allen, both of whom he had met on Christmas Day at Dingley Dell. Bob, in delight, dragged Winkle into the back room where sat Ben Allen, amusing himself by boring holes in the chimney piece with a red-hot poker.

The precious couple had, in fact, set up shop together, and were using every trick they knew to make people think them great doctors with a tremendous practice. They insisted on Winkle's staying to supper, and it was lucky he did so, for he heard news of Arabella, the pretty girl who had worn the little boots with fur around the top at Dingley Dell, and with whom he had fallen in love. He learned that Arabella had scorned the sprightly Bob Sawyer, and that her brother, in anger, had taken her away from Mr. Wardle's and put her in the house of an old aunt—a dull, close place not far from Bristol. Before he bade them good night, Winkle had determined to find her.

He met with a shock, on returning to his inn, to come suddenly upon Dowler sitting in the coffee-room. Winkle drew back, very pale, and was greatly surprised to see the bloodthirsty Dowler do likewise as, growing even paler than Winkle, he began an apology for his action of the evening before. As a matter of fact, Dowler had run away from Bath, too, at dawn, in fear of Winkle, and thought now the latter had pursued him. Winkle, suspecting this, put on a look of great fierceness but accepted the apology, and the pair shook hands.

Winkle's plan for finding Arabella Allen met now with a set-back. Sam Weller arrived at midnight and insisted that Winkle be waked at once. Once in his room, Sam told him Mr. Pickwick's instructions and declared he would not leave his sight till Winkle came back with him to Bath. This was awkward, but luckily, Mr. Pickwick himself, to whom Sam wrote, arrived next day and