‘Not a whisper of my name,’ replied Pott; ‘this is a buff neighbourhood. If the excited and irritable populace knew I was here, I should be torn to pieces.’
‘No! Vould you, sir?’ inquired Sam.
‘I should be the victim of their fury,’ replied Pott. ‘Now young man, what of your master?’
‘He’s a-stopping here to-night on his vay to town, with a couple of friends,’ replied Sam.
‘Is Mr. Winkle one of them?’ inquired Pott, with a slight frown.
‘No, Sir. Mr. Vinkle stops at home now,’ rejoined Sam. ‘He’s married.’
‘Married!’ exclaimed Pott, with frightful vehemence. He stopped, smiled darkly, and added, in a low, vindictive tone, ‘It serves him right!’
Having given vent to this cruel ebullition of deadly malice and cold-blooded triumph over a fallen enemy, Mr. Pott inquired whether Mr. Pickwick’s friends were ‘blue?’ Receiving a most satisfactory answer in the affirmative from Sam, who knew as much about the matter as Pott himself, he consented to accompany him to Mr. Pickwick’s room, where a hearty welcome awaited him, and an agreement to club their dinners together was at once made and ratified.
‘And how are matters going on in Eatanswill?’ inquired Mr. Pickwick, when Pott had taken a seat near the fire, and the whole party had got their wet boots off, and dry slippers on. ‘Is the Independent still in being?’
‘The Independent, sir,’ replied Pott, ‘is still dragging on a wretched and lingering career. Abhorred and despised by even the few who are cognisant of its miserable and disgraceful existence, stifled by the very filth it so profusely scatters, rendered deaf and blind by the exhalations of its own slime, the obscene journal, happily unconscious of its degraded state, is rapidly sinking beneath that treacherous mud which, while it seems to give it a firm standing with the low and debased classes of society, is nevertheless rising above its detested head, and will speedily engulf it for ever.’