‘Oh, Mr. Jingle,’ said Mr. Pickwick hastily. ‘Yes. Well?’
‘Well, it’s all arranged,’ said Lowten, mending his pen. ‘The agent at Liverpool said he had been obliged to you many times when you were in business, and he would be glad to take him on your recommendation.’
‘That’s well,’ said Mr. Pickwick. ‘I am delighted to hear it.’
‘But I say,’ resumed Lowten, scraping the back of the pen preparatory to making a fresh split, ‘what a soft chap that other is!’
‘Which other?’
‘Why, that servant, or friend, or whatever he is; you know, Trotter.’
‘Ah!’ said Mr. Pickwick, with a smile. ‘I always thought him the reverse.’
‘Well, and so did I, from what little I saw of him,’ replied Lowten, ‘it only shows how one may be deceived. What do you think of his going to Demerara, too?’
‘What! And giving up what was offered him here!’ exclaimed Mr. Pickwick.
‘Treating Perker’s offer of eighteen bob a week, and a rise if he behaved himself, like dirt,’ replied Lowten. ‘He said he must go along with the other one, and so they persuaded Perker to write again, and they’ve got him something on the same estate; not near so good, Perker says, as a convict would get in New South Wales, if he appeared at his trial in a new suit of clothes.’