“Perhaps we had better retire,” whispered Mr. Pickwick.
“Never, sir,” rejoined Pott, pot-valiant in a double sense, “never.” With these words, Mr. Pott took up his position on an opposite settle, and selecting one from a little bundle of newspapers began to read against his enemy.
Mr. Pott, of course, read the Independent, and Mr. Slurk, of course, read the Gazette; and each gentleman audibly expressed his contempt of the other’s compositions by bitter laughs and sarcastic sniffs; whence they proceeded to more open expressions of opinion, such as “absurd,” “wretched,” “atrocity,” “humbug,” “knavery,” “dirt,” “filth,” “slime,” “ditch-water,” and other critical remarks of the like nature.
Both Mr. Bob Sawyer and Mr. Ben Allen had beheld these symptoms of rivalry and hatred, with a degree of delight which imparted great additional relish to the cigars at which they were puffing most vigorously. The moment they began to flag, the mischievous Mr. Bob Sawyer, addressing Slurk with great politeness, said:
“Will you allow me to look at your paper, sir, when you have quite done with it?”
“You will find very little to repay you for your trouble in this contemptible thing, sir,” replied Slurk, bestowing a Satanic frown on Pott.
“You shall have this presently,” said Pott, looking up pale with rage and quivering in his speech from the same cause. “Ha! ha! you will be amused with this fellow’s audacity.”
Terrific emphasis was laid on this “thing” and “fellow;” and the faces of both editors began to glow with defiance.
“The ribaldry of this miserable man is despicably disgusting,” said Pott, pretending to address Bob Sawyer, and scowling upon Slurk.