"What do you mean by a wide awake cove," said I, "Mr. Timmins?"—"Vy," said Timmins, "there's no von hellgibble to be a member on our society but what gets a woucher from a member that he has a summut to say, and prove wot has made him wide awake,—that is to say, more up and down to the ways of the world than the generality of people, by experence."
"You mean, if I understand you rightly, Mr. Timmins, that your club is one where a certain number of persons meet to spend the social hours of relaxation in giving each other the tale of some particular event or occurrence that has taught them to know there is more roguery in the world than certain philanthropists would lend us to believe."—"You've hit it, sir," said Timmins; "down as a hammer."
"Well, Timmins, I shall be happy to join you," I replied.
During our walk, in answer to certain questions, Timmins informed me that the president of the club was a Mr. Phiggins, a retired draper; and that the leading members were Mr. Pounce, a lawyer's clerk, Mr. Bob Jinks, a butcher, Mr. Shortcut, a tobacconist, Mr. Sprigs, a fruiterer. "But," said Timmins, "you'll know them all in five minutes. I don't think this wet evening, there will be a strong muster: howsomdever, we can console ourselves that, if not numerous, we are select."
"Very proper consolation, Timmins," said I.
When we arrived at the Three Pies, the sign of the house where the club was held, Timmins went up stairs to communicate the fact of my being below, and to assure the company that all was regular and right, as he said; and shortly afterwards I was ushered into the presence, and introduced to the worthies previously named. The president, a jolly-looking man about fifty, sat in an elevated chair at the top of a long table, which gave a goodly display of pipes, glasses of grog, &c. On each side, the members sat at their most perfect ease, smoking and chatting. It would appear that they had been at business some time, for it seemed ebb-tide with the contents of the glasses; and several worthies were in the act of knocking the ashes out of their respective pipes. After ordering a glass of punch and a segar, and another for Timmins, a conversation which was going on before we came in was resumed, of which the following is a faithful report.
"That puts me in mind of M'Flummery," said Pounce, the lawyer's clerk, putting his hand—accidentally, I suppose, of course,—into Shortcut's open screw of tobacco, and filling his pipe therefrom; "I mean him as was hung at the Old Bailey some ten years back."
"And what was he hung for?" asked the president.—"Why, not exactly for his good behaviour. He set out in life as heavy a swell as ever flowed up in the regions of the West End—carried on the game for about a dozen years in bang-up style.—My eye! how precious drunk he made Snatch'em, the bum, and I, one night as we pinned him coming home in his cab from the Opera to give a champaign supper at the Clarendon."
"Champaign supper?" said the president. "Why, champaign is a wine; and no man, I maintain, can make a supper off wine, 'coz wine is drink, and supper, it stands to reason, is eating."
"And no mistake," said Shortcut.