Pickwickian Studies | Page 6

and insisted on being heard, and, like Mr. Nupkins, Mr. Fang had to listen:
"I demand to be sworn," said the man, "I will not be put down."
"Swear the man," growled Mr. Fang, with a very ill grace. "Now, what have you got to say?"
Again, Mr. Nupkins said of Sam:
"He is evidently a desperate ruffian."
"He is my servant, sir," said Mr. Pickwick, angrily.
"Oh, he is your servant, is he. A conspiracy to defeat the ends of justice."
Compare Fang and the Bookseller:
"That book, is it paid for? No, it is not."
"Dear me, I forgot all about it," exclaimed the old gentleman.
"A nice person to prepare a charge against a poor boy," said Fang; "the law will overtake you yet, &c."
and so on.
In short, Nupkins is a softened edition of Fang. It was curious that he turned out at the end not altogether so badly, and there is certainly a little inconsistency in the character. After Mr. Pickwick's disclosures, he becomes very rational and amiable. We may wonder, too, how the latter could have accepted hospitality from, or have sat down at the board of, the man who treated him in so gross a fashion, and, further, that after accepting this entertainment, Mr. Pickwick should take an heroic and injured tone, recalling his injuries as he withdrew, but after his dinner.
This magistrate was despotic enough, but we might have expected that he would have had Mr. Peter Magnus brought before him also, and have issued a warrant. The lady, however, was silent as to her admirer, and this difficulty appears to have occurred to the author for he makes Mr. Nupkins remark: "The other principal you say has absconded," she having said nothing whatever. Being at the "White Horse," too, he was accessible. He may, however, have gone off to secure "a friend."
In Ipswich there is controversy as to the exact whereabouts of his mansion. But there can be little doubt as to the matter, as the directions given are minute. The guide books take care to point it out. "Bending his steps towards St. Clement's Church"--that is leaving the "White Horse" and following the street on the right, "he found himself in a retired spot, a kind of courtyard of venerable appearance, which he discovered had no other outlet than the turning by which he had entered." I believe it is the house at the far end of the lane--now Mr. Bennett's. The street has been cut through the lawn. There are here, as there were then, "old red brick houses" and "the green gate of a garden at the bottom of the yard." Nothing could be more precise, allowing of course for the changes, demolitions, re-buildings, &c., of sixty years.
What became of Mr. Peter Magnus and his lady? Did they "make it up"? or was Mr. Pickwick enabled to make such explanations as would clear away all suspicions. Did the two angry gentlemen meet again after Mr. Pickwick's return to the "White Horse?" These are interesting questions, and one at least can be answered. Owing to an indiscretion of the foolish Winkle's, during the famous action of Bardell v. Pickwick, we learn that Mr. Pickwick "being found in a lady's apartment at midnight had led to the breaking off of the projected marriage of the lady in question." Now this seems a serious result of Mr. Pickwick's indiscretion, and very unfortunate for the poor lady, and ought to have caused him some remorse. No doubt he explained the incident, which he had better have done at first, for now it had the air of attempting to shield the lady. It was odd that Mr. Pickwick should thus have interfered with the marriage of two elderly spinster ladies.
There is, by the way, a droll inconsistency on the part of the author in his description of a scene between Mr. Magnus and Mr. Pickwick. When the former was about to propose to the middle-aged lady, he told Mr. Pickwick that he arranged to see her at eleven. "It only wants a quarter now." Breakfast was waiting, and the pair sat down to it. Mr. Magnus was looking at the clock every other second. Presently he announced, "It only wants two minutes." Notwithstanding this feverish impatience, he asks Mr. Pickwick for his advice in proposing, which the latter gave at great length. Mr. Magnus listened, now without any impatience. The clock hand was "verging on the five minutes past;" not until it was ten minutes past did he rise.

IV.--Had Mr. Pickwick ever Loved?
Mr. Pickwick's early history is obscure enough, and we know no details save that he had been "in business." But had he ever an affair of the heart? Just as in real life, when a stray allusion will occasionally escape from a person betraying something of his past history, so once or