III.--In the Fleet Prison
Two months later Mr. Pickwick was arrested for the non-payment of costs and damages and taken to the Fleet Prison. And so, for the first time in his life, Mr. Pickwick found himself within the walls of a debtor's prison.
"Where am I to sleep to-night?" inquired Mr. Pickwick of the turnkey, and after some discussion it was discovered there was a bed to let.
"It ain't a large 'un, but it's an out-and-outer to sleep in. This way, sir," said the turnkey.
Mr. Pickwick, accompanied by Sam Weller, followed his guide up a staircase and along a gallery; at the end of this was an apartment containing eight or nine iron bedsteads.
Mr. Pickwick felt very low-spirited and uncomfortable when he was left alone, and he went slowly to bed. He was awakened from his slumbers by the noise of his bed-fellows, one of whom, wearing grey cotton stockings, was performing a hornpipe; while another, evidently very drunk, was warbling as much as he could recollect of a comic song; the third, a man with thick, bushy whiskers, was applauding both performers.
"My name is Smangle, sir," said the man with the whiskers to Mr. Pickwick.
"Mine is Mivins," said the man in the stockings.
"Well; but come," said Mr. Smangle, after assuring Mr. Pickwick a great many times that he entertained a very high respect for the feelings of a gentleman, "this is but dry work. Let's rinse our mouths with a drop of burnt sherry; the last-comer shall stand it, Mivins shall fetch it, and I'll help to drink it. That's a fair and gentleman-like division of labour, anyhow."
Mr. Pickwick, unwilling to hazard a quarrel, gladly assented to the proposition.