‘Pooh, pooh, nonsense. You didn’t nod to anybody, Pickwick? A mistake, a mistake,’ said Perker.
‘The gentleman handed me his card,’ replied Mr. Pickwick, producing it from his waistcoat pocket. ‘I accepted it, as the gentleman seemed to wish it—in fact I had some curiosity to look at it when I should be at leisure. I—’
The little attorney burst into a loud laugh, and returning the card to the lame man, informing him it was all a mistake, whispered to Mr. Pickwick as the man turned away in dudgeon, that he was only a bail.
‘A what!’ exclaimed Mr. Pickwick.
‘A bail,’ replied Perker.
‘A bail!’ ‘Yes, my dear sir—half a dozen of ’em here. Bail you to any amount, and only charge half a crown. Curious trade, isn’t it?’ said Perker, regaling himself with a pinch of snuff.
‘What! Am I to understand that these men earn a livelihood by waiting about here, to perjure themselves before the judges of the land, at the rate of half a crown a crime?’ exclaimed Mr. Pickwick, quite aghast at the disclosure.
‘Why, I don’t exactly know about perjury, my dear sir,’ replied the little gentleman. ‘Harsh word, my dear sir, very harsh word indeed. It’s a legal fiction, my dear sir, nothing more.’ Saying which, the attorney shrugged his shoulders, smiled, took a second pinch of snuff, and led the way into the office of the judge’s clerk.
This was a room of specially dirty appearance, with a very low ceiling and old panelled walls; and so badly lighted, that although it was broad day outside, great tallow candles were burning on the desks. At one end, was a door leading to the judge’s private apartment, round which were congregated a crowd of attorneys and managing clerks, who were called in, in the order in which their respective appointments stood upon the file. Every time this door was opened to let a party out, the next party made a violent rush to get in; and, as in addition to the numerous dialogues which passed between the gentlemen who were waiting to see the judge, a variety of personal squabbles ensued between the greater part of those who had seen him, there was as much noise as could well be raised in an apartment of such confined dimensions.
Nor were the conversations of these gentlemen the only sounds that broke upon the ear. Standing on a box behind a wooden bar at another end of the room was a clerk in spectacles who was ‘taking the affidavits’; large batches of which were, from time to time, carried into the private room by another clerk for the judge’s signature. There were a large number of attorneys’ clerks to be sworn, and it being a moral impossibility to swear them all at once, the struggles of these gentlemen to reach the clerk in spectacles, were like those of a crowd to get in at the pit door of a theatre when Gracious Majesty honours it with its presence. Another functionary, from time to time, exercised his lungs in calling over the names of those who had been sworn, for the purpose of restoring to them their affidavits after they had been signed by the judge, which gave rise to a few more scuffles; and all these things going on at the same time, occasioned as much bustle as the most active and excitable person could desire to behold. There were yet another class of persons—those who were waiting to attend summonses their employers had taken out, which it was optional to the attorney on the opposite side to attend or not—and whose business it was, from time to time, to cry out the opposite attorney’s name; to make certain that he was not in attendance without their knowledge.
For example. Leaning against the wall, close beside the seat Mr. Pickwick had taken, was an office–lad of fourteen, with a tenor voice; near him a common–law clerk with a bass one.
A clerk hurried in with a bundle of papers, and stared about him.
‘Sniggle and Blink,’ cried the tenor.
‘Porkin and Snob,’ growled the bass. ‘Stumpy and Deacon,’ said the new–comer.
Nobody answered; the next man who came in, was bailed by the whole three; and he in his turn shouted for another firm; and then somebody else roared in a loud voice for another; and so forth.
All this time, the man in the spectacles was hard at work, swearing the clerks; the oath being invariably administered, without any effort at punctuation, and usually in the following terms:—
‘Take the book in your right hand this is your name and hand–writing you swear that the contents of this your affidavit are true so help you God a shilling you must get change I haven’t got it.’
‘Well, Sam,’ said Mr. Pickwick, ‘I suppose they are getting the habeas–corpus ready?’
‘Yes,’ said Sam, ‘and I vish they’d bring out the have–his–carcase. It’s wery unpleasant keepin’ us vaitin’ here. I’d ha’ got half a dozen have–his–carcases ready, pack’d up and all, by this time.’
What sort of cumbrous and unmanageable machine, Sam Weller imagined a habeas–corpus to be, does not appear; for Perker, at that moment, walked up and took Mr. Pickwick away.
The usual forms having been gone through, the body of Samuel Pickwick was soon afterwards confided to the custody of the tipstaff, to be by him taken to the warden of the Fleet Prison, and there detained until the amount of the damages and costs in the action of Bardell against Pickwick was fully paid and satisfied.
‘And that,’ said Mr. Pickwick, laughing, ‘will be a very long time. Sam, call another hackney–coach. Perker, my dear friend, good–bye.’
‘I shall go with you, and see you safe there,’ said Perker.
‘Indeed,’ replied Mr. Pickwick, ‘I would rather go without any other attendant than Sam. As soon as I get settled, I will write and let you know, and I shall expect you immediately. Until then, good–bye.’
As Mr. Pickwick said this, he got into the coach which had by this time arrived, followed by the tipstaff. Sam having stationed himself on the box, it rolled away.
‘A most extraordinary man that!’ said Perker, as he stopped to pull on his gloves.
‘What a bankrupt he’d make, Sir,’ observed Mr. Lowten, who was standing near. ‘How he would bother the commissioners! He’d set ’em at defiance if they talked of committing him, Sir.’
The attorney did not appear very much delighted with his clerk’s professional estimate of Mr. Pickwick’s character, for he walked away without deigning any reply.
The hackney–coach jolted along Fleet Street, as hackney–coaches usually do. The horses ‘went better’, the driver said, when they had anything before them (they must have gone at a most extraordinary pace when there was nothing), and so the vehicle kept behind a cart; when the cart stopped, it stopped; and when the cart went on again, it did the same. Mr. Pickwick sat opposite the tipstaff; and the tipstaff sat with his hat between his knees, whistling a tune, and looking out of the coach window.
Time performs wonders. By the powerful old gentleman’s aid, even a hackney–coach gets over half a mile of ground. They stopped at length, and Mr. Pickwick alighted at the gate of the Fleet.
The tipstaff, just looking over his shoulder to see that his charge was following close at his heels, preceded Mr. Pickwick into the prison; turning to the left, after they had entered, they passed through an open door into a lobby, from which a heavy gate, opposite to that by which they had entered, and which was guarded by a stout turnkey with the key in his hand, led at once into the interior of the prison.
Here they stopped, while the tipstaff delivered his papers; and here Mr. Pickwick was apprised that he would remain, until he had undergone the ceremony, known to the initiated as ‘sitting for your portrait.’
‘Sitting for my portrait?’ said Mr. Pickwick.
‘Having your likeness taken, sir,’ replied the stout turnkey. ‘We’re capital hands at likenesses