“You’d hardly think, would you now,” said Price, turning towards Mr. Pickwick, “that that chap’s been here a week yesterday, and never once shaved himself yet, because he feels so certain he’s going out in half an hour’s time, that he thinks he may as well put it off till he gets home?”
“Poor man!” said Mr. Pickwick. “Are his chances of getting out of his difficulties really so great?”
“Chances be d—d,” replied Price; “he hasn’t half the ghost of one. I wouldn’t give that for his chance of walking about the streets this time ten years.” With this Mr. Price snapped his fingers contemptuously, and rang the bell.
“Give me a sheet of paper, Crookey,” said Mr. Price to the attendant, who in dress and general appearance looked something between a bankrupt grazier, and a drover in a state of insolvency; “and a glass of brandy and water, Crookey, d’ye hear? I’m going to write to my father, and I must have a stimulant, or I shan’t be able to pitch it strong enough into the old boy.” At this facetious speech, the young boy, it is almost needless to say, was fairly convulsed.
“That’s right,” said Mr. Price. “Never say die. All fun, ain’t it?”
“Prime!” said the young gentleman.
“You’ve some spirit about you, you have,” said Price. “You’ve seen something of life.”
“I rather think I have!” replied the boy. He had looked at it through the dirty panes of glass in a bar door.
Mr. Pickwick feeling not a little disgusted with this dialogue, as well as with the air and manner of the two beings by whom it had been carried on, was about to inquire whether he could not be accommodated with a private sitting-room, when two or three strangers of genteel appearance entered, at sight of whom the boy threw his cigar into the fire, and whispering to Mr. Price that they had come to “make it all right” for him, joined them at a table in the further end of the room.