Tales from Dickens

by Hallie Erminie Rives; Charles Dickens

Job told Sam that his master, Jingle, had bribed the mistress of the boarding-school to deny to Mr. Pickwick that she knew him, and had then cruelly deserted the beautiful young lady for a richer one. But this time Sam was too wise to believe anything Job said.

Meanwhile, in the inn, Mr. Pickwick was giving Mr. Peter Magnus some good advice as to the best method of proposing. The latter finally plucked up his courage, saw the lady, proposed to her, and was accepted. In his gratitude, he insisted on taking Mr. Pickwick to be introduced to her.

The instant he saw her, however, Mr. Pickwick uttered an exclamation, and the lady, with a slight scream, hid her face in her hands. She was none other than the owner of the room into which Mr. Pickwick had intruded the night before.

Mr. Peter Magnus, in astonishment, demanded where and when they had seen each other before. This the lady declared she would not reveal for the world, and Mr. Pickwick likewise refusing, the other flew into a jealous rage, which ended in his rushing from the room swearing he would challenge Mr. Pickwick to mortal combat. Tupman, Winkle and Snodgrass being announced at that moment, Mr. Pickwick joined them, and the middle-aged lady was left alone in a state of terrible alarm.

The longer she thought the more terrified she became at the idea of possible bloodshed and harm to her lover. At length, overcome by dread, and knowing no other way to stop the duel, she hastened to the house of the mayor of the town, a pompous magistrate named Nupkins, and begged him to stop the duel. Not wishing to make trouble for Mr. Peter Magnus, she declared that the two rioters who threatened to disturb the peace of the town were named Pickwick and Tupman; these two, Nupkins, thinking them cutthroats from London, at once sent men to arrest.

Mr. Pickwick was just telling his followers the story of his mishap of the night before, when a half-dozen officers burst into the room. Boiling with indignation, Mr. Pickwick had to submit, and the officers put him and Tupman into an old sedan-chair and carried them off, followed by Winkle and Snodgrass and by all the town loafers.

Sam Weller met the procession and tried to rescue them, but was knocked down and taken prisoner also. So they were all brought to Nupkins's house.

The mayor refused to hear a word Mr. Pickwick said and was about to send them all to jail as desperate characters when Sam Weller called his master aside and whispered to him that the house they were in was the very one from which he had seen Job Trotter come, and from this fact he guessed that Jingle himself had wormed himself into the good graces of the mayor. At this Mr. Pickwick asked to have a private talk with Nupkins.

This was grudgingly granted and in a few moments Mr. Pickwick had learned that Jingle, calling himself "Captain Fitz-Marshall," had imposed so well on the pompous mayor that the latter's wife and daughter had introduced him everywhere and he himself had boasted to everybody of his acquaintance.

It was Nupkins's turn to feel humble when Mr. Pickwick told him Jingle's real character. He was terribly afraid the story would get out and that the town would laugh at him, so he became all at once tremendously polite, declared their arrest had been all a mistake and begged the Pickwickians to make themselves at home. Sam Weller was sent down to the kitchen to get his dinner, where he met a pretty housemaid named Mary, with whom he proceeded to fall very much in love for the first time in his life.