assistance, and execute these warrants with as little delay as possible.

Muzzle!'

Yes, your Worship.'

Show the lady out.'

Miss Witherfield retired, deeply impressed with the magistrate's

learning and research; Mr Nupkins retired to lunch; Mr Jinks retired

within himself - that being the only retirement he had, except the

sofa-bedstead in the small parlour which was occupied by his

landlady's family in the daytime - and Mr Grummer retired, to wipe

out, by his mode of discharging his present commission, the insult

which had been fastened upon himself, and the other representative of

his Majesty - the beadle - in the course of the morning.

While these resolute and determined preparations for the conservation

of the king's peace were pending, Mr Pickwick and his friends, wholly

unconscious of the mighty events in progress, had sat quietly down to

dinner; and very talkative and companionable they all were. Mr

Pickwick was in the very act of relating his adventure of the preceding

night, to the great amusement of his followers, Mr Tupman especially,

when the door opened, and a somewhat forbidding countenance

peeped into the room. The eyes in the forbidding countenance looked

very earnestly at Mr Pickwick, for several seconds, and were to all

appearance satisfied with their investigation; for the body to which the

forbidding countenance belonged, slowly brought itself into the

apartment, and presented the form of an elderly individual in top-

boots - not to keep the reader any longer in suspense, in short, the

eyes were the wandering eyes of Mr Grummer, and the body was the

body of the same gentleman.

Mr Grummer's mode of proceeding was professional, but peculiar. His

first act was to bolt the door on the inside; his second, to polish his

head and countenance very carefully with a cotton handkerchief; his

third, to place his hat, with the cotton handkerchief in it, on the

nearest chair; and his fourth, to produce from the breast-pocket of his

coat a short truncheon, surmounted by a brazen crown, with which

he beckoned to Mr Pickwick with a grave and ghost-like air.

Mr Snodgrass was the first to break the astonished silence. He looked

steadily at Mr Grummer for a brief space, and then said emphatically,

'This is a private room, Sir. A private room.'

Mr Grummer shook his head, and replied, 'No room's private to his

Majesty when the street door's once passed. That's law. Some people

maintains that an Englishman's house is his castle. That's gammon.'

The Pickwick Papers