Fleet—with the others of course. But now for the remarkable thing. On Mr. Pickwick’s happy release and when every one was rejoining, Wardle invited the whole party to a family dinner at the Osborne. There were Snodgrass, Winkle, Perker even, but no Tupman! Winkle and his wife were at the “George and Vulture.” Why not send to Tupman as well. No one perhaps thought of him—he had taken no interest in the late exciting adventures, had not been of the least help to anybody—a selfish old bachelor. When Mr. Pickwick had absented himself looking for his Dulwich house, it is pointed out with marked emphasis that certain folk—“among whom was Mr. Tupman”—maliciously suggested that he was busy looking for a wife! Neither Winkle nor Snodgrass started this hypothesis, but Tupman. He, however, was at Dulwich for Winkle’s marriage, and had a seat on the Pickwick coach. In later days, we learn that the Snodgrasses settled themselves at Dingley Dell so as to be near the family—the Winkles, at Dulwich, to be near Mr. Pickwick, both showing natural affection. The selfish Tupman, thinking of nobody but himself, settled at Richmond where he showed himself on the Terrace with a youthful and jaunty air, “trying to attract the elderly single ladies of condition.” All the others kept in contact with their chief, asking him to be godfather, &c. But we have not a word of Tupman. It is likely, with natures such as his, that he never forgot the insulting remark about his corpulence. That is the way with such vain creatures.
Boz, I believe, had none of these speculations positively before him, but he was led by the logic of his story. He had to follow his characters and their development; they did not follow him.
IV.—Grummer
This well drawn sketch of an ignorant, self-sufficient constable is admirable. I have little doubt that one of the incidents in which he figures was suggested to Boz by a little adventure of Grimaldi’s which he found in the mass of papers submitted to him, and which he worked up effectively. A stupid and malicious old constable, known as “Old Lucas,” went to arrest the clown on an imaginary charge,
as he was among his friends at the theatre. As in the case of Grummer, the friends, like Winkle and Snodgrass, threatened the constable. The magistrate heard the case, sentenced Grimaldi to pay 5s. fine. Old Lucas, in his disappointment, arrested him again. Being attacked by Grimaldi, as Grummer was by Sam, he drew his staff and behaved outrageously. The magistrate then, like Nupkins, had him placed in the dock, and sentenced.
It has also been stated that Grummer was drawn from Towshend—the celebrated Bow Street Runner again introduced in “Oliver Twist.” Towshend was a privileged person, like Grummer, and gave his advice familiarly to the magistrates.
CHAPTER XIV. CHARACTERISTICS
I.—The Wardle Family
Here is a very pleasing and natural group of persons, in whom it is impossible not to take a deep interest. They are like some amiable family that we have known. Old Wardle, as he is called, though he was under fifty, was a widower, and had remained so, quite content with his daughters’ attachment. He had his worthy old mother to live with him, to whom he was most dutiful, tolerant, and affectionate. These two points recommend him. There was no better son than Boz himself, so he could appreciate these things. The sketch is interesting as a picture of the patriarchal system that obtained in the country districts, all the family forming one household, as in France. For here we have Wardle, his mother, and his sister, together with his two pleasing daughters, while, later on, his sons-in-law established themselves close by. The “poor relations” seem to have been always there. It is astonishing how Boz, in his short career, could have observed and noticed these things. Wardle’s fondness for his daughters is really charming, and displayed without affectation. He connected them with the image of his lost wife. There is no more natural, truly affecting passage than his display of fretfulness when he got some inkling that his second daughter was about to make a rather improvident marriage with young Snodgrass. The first had followed her inclinations in wedding Trundle—a not very good match—but he did not lose her as the pair lived beside
him. He thought Emily, however, a pretty girl who ought to do better, and he had his eye on “a young gentleman in the neighbourhood”—and for some four or five months past he had been pressing her to receive his addresses favourably. This was clearly a good match. Not that he would unduly press her, but “if she could, for I would never force a young girl’s inclinations.” He never thought, he says, that the Snodgrass business was serious. But, how natural that, when Arabella, their friend, had become a regular heroine and had gone off with her Winkle, that this should fill Emily’s head with similar thoughts, and set the pair on thinking that they were persecuted, &c. What a natural scene is this between father and daughter.