Chapter XXI

In Which The Old Man Launches Forth Into His Favourite Theme,

And Relates A Story About A Queer Client

Aha!' said the old man, a brief description of whose manner and

appearance concluded the last chapter, 'aha! who was talking about

the inns?'

'I was, Sir,' replied Mr Pickwick - 'I was observing what singular old

places they are.'

YOU!' said the old man contemptuously. 'What do YOU know of the

time when young men shut themselves up in those lonely rooms, and

read and read, hour after hour, and night after night, till their reason

wandered beneath their midnight studies; till their mental powers

were exhausted; till morning's light brought no freshness or health to

them; and they sank beneath the unnatural devotion of their youthful

energies to their dry old books? Coming down to a later time, and a

very different day, what do YOU know of the gradual sinking beneath

consumption, or the quick wasting of fever - the grand results of ‘life’

and dissipation - which men have undergone in these same rooms?

How many vain pleaders for mercy, do you think, have turned away

heart-sick from the lawyer's office, to find a resting-place in the

Thames, or a refuge in the jail? They are no ordinary houses, those.

There is not a panel in the old wainscotting, but what, if it were

endowed with the powers of speech and memory, could start from the

wall, and tell its tale of horror - the romance of life, Sir, the romance of

life! Common- place as they may seem now, I tell you they are strange

old places, and I would rather hear many a legend with a terrific-

sounding name, than the true history of one old set of chambers.'

There was something so odd in the old man's sudden energy, and the

subject which had called it forth, that Mr Pickwick was prepared with

no observation in reply; and the old man checking his impetuosity,

and resuming the leer, which had disappeared during his previous

excitement, said -

'Look at them in another light - their most common-place and least

romantic. What fine places of slow torture they are! Think of the needy

man who has spent his all, beggared himself, and pinched his friends,

to enter the profession, which is destined never to yield him a morsel

of bread. The waiting - the hope - the disappointment - the fear - the

misery - the poverty - the blight on his hopes, and end to his career -

the suicide perhaps, or the shabby, slipshod drunkard. Am I not right

about them?' And the old man rubbed his hands, and leered as if in

delight at having found another point of view in which to place his

favourite subject.

The Pickwick Papers