The Posthumous Papers of the Pickwick Club, v. 2 (of 2)

“Gentlemen, what does this mean? ‘Chops and Tomato sauce. Yours, Pickwick.’”
THE POSTHUMOUS PAPERS OF THE PICKWICK CLUB
BY CHARLES DICKENS
ILLUSTRATED BY CECIL ALDIN
VOLUME THE SECOND
NEW YORK E. P. DUTTON & COMPANY 31 West Twenty-Third Street



The Story of the Goblins who stole a Sexton
“In an old abbey town, down in this part of the country, a long, long while ago—so long, that the story must be a true one, because our great-grandfathers implicitly believed it—there officiated as sexton and grave-digger in the churchyard, one Gabriel Grub. It by no means follows that because a man is a sexton, and constantly surrounded by the emblems of mortality, therefore he should be a morose and melancholy man; your undertakers are the merriest fellows in the world; and I once had the honour of being on intimate terms with a mute, who in private life, and off duty, was as comical and jocose a little fellow as ever chirped out a devil-may-care song, without a hitch in his memory, or drained off the contents of a good stiff glass without stopping for breath. But, notwithstanding these precedents to the contrary, Gabriel Grub was an ill-conditioned, cross-grained, surly fellow—a morose and lonely man, who consorted with nobody but himself, and an old wicker bottle which fitted into his large deep waistcoat pocket—and who eyed each merry face, as it passed him by, with such a deep scowl of malice and ill-humour, as it was difficult to meet, without feeling something the worse for.