looked round on the attentive faces of his wondering auditory with a

smile of grim delight.

What strange things these are you tell us of, Sir,' said Mr Pickwick,

minutely scanning the old man's countenance, by the aid of his

glasses.

Strange!' said the little old man. 'Nonsense; you think them strange,

because you know nothing about it. They are funny, but not

uncommon.'

Funny!' exclaimed Mr Pickwick involuntarily. 'Yes, funny, are they

not?' replied the little old man, with a diabolical leer; and then,

without pausing for an answer, he continued -

'I knew another man - let me see - forty years ago now - who took an

old, damp, rotten set of chambers, in one of the most ancient inns,

that had been shut up and empty for years and years before. There

were lots of old women's stories about the place, and it certainly was

very far from being a cheerful one; but he was poor, and the rooms

were cheap, and that would have been quite a sufficient reason for

him, if they had been ten times worse than they really were. He was

obliged to take some mouldering fixtures that were on the place, and,

among the rest, was a great lumbering wooden press for papers, with

large glass doors, and a green curtain inside; a pretty useless thing for

him, for he had no papers to put in it; and as to his clothes, he carried

them about with him, and that wasn't very hard work, either. Well, he

had moved in all his furniture - it wasn't quite a truck- full - and had

sprinkled it about the room, so as to make the four chairs look as

much like a dozen as possible, and was sitting down before the fire at

night, drinking the first glass of two gallons of whisky he had ordered

on credit, wondering whether it would ever be paid for, and if so, in

how many years' time, when his eyes encountered the glass doors of

the wooden press. ‘Ah,’ says he, ‘if I hadn't been obliged to take that

ugly article at the old broker's valuation, I might have got something

comfortable for the money. I'll tell you what it is, old fellow,’ he said,

speaking aloud to the press, having nothing else to speak to, ‘if it

wouldn't cost more to break up your old carcass, than it would ever be

worth afterward, I'd have a fire out of you in less than no time.’ He

had hardly spoken the words, when a sound resembling a faint groan,

appeared to issue from the interior of the case. It startled him at first,

but thinking, on a moment's reflection, that it must be some young

fellow in the next chamber, who had been dining out, he put his feet

on the fender, and raised the poker to stir the fire. At that moment,

the sound was repeated; and one of the glass doors slowly opening,

disclosed a pale and emaciated figure in soiled and worn apparel,

standing erect in the press. The figure was tall and thin, and the

countenance expressive of care and anxiety; but there was something

The Pickwick Papers