Grummer,' said the magistrate, in an awful voice.

Your Wash-up,' replied Grummer, with the smile of a favourite.

Come, come, Sir,' said the magistrate sternly, 'don't let me see any of

this levity here. It is very unbecoming, and I can assure you that you

have very little to smile at. Was the account you gave me just now

strictly true? Now be careful, sir!' 'Your Wash-up,' stammered

Grummer, 'I-'

Oh, you are confused, are you?' said the magistrate. 'Mr Jinks, you

observe this confusion?'

Certainly, Sir,' replied Jinks.

Now,' said the magistrate, 'repeat your statement, Grummer, and

again I warn you to be careful. Mr Jinks, take his words down.'

The unfortunate Grummer proceeded to re-state his complaint, but,

what between Mr Jinks's taking down his words, and the magistrate's

taking them up, his natural tendency to rambling, and his extreme

confusion, he managed to get involved, in something under three

minutes, in such a mass of entanglement and contradiction, that Mr

Nupkins at once declared he didn't believe him. So the fines were

remitted, and Mr Jinks found a couple of bail in no time. And all these

solemn proceedings having been satisfactorily concluded, Mr

Grummer was ignominiously ordered out - an awful instance of the

instability of human greatness, and the uncertain tenure of great

men's favour.

Mrs. Nupkins was a majestic female in a pink gauze turban and a

light brown wig. Miss Nupkins possessed all her mamma's

haughtiness without the turban, and all her ill-nature without the

wig; and whenever the exercise of these two amiable qualities involved

mother and daughter in some unpleasant dilemma, as they not

infrequently did, they both concurred in laying the blame on the

shoulders of Mr Nupkins. Accordingly, when Mr Nupkins sought Mrs.

Nupkins, and detailed the communication which had been made by

Mr Pickwick, Mrs. Nupkins suddenly recollected that she had always

expected something of the kind; that she had always said it would be

so; that her advice was never taken; that she really did not know what

Mr Nupkins supposed she was; and so forth.

The idea!' said Miss Nupkins, forcing a tear of very scanty proportions

into the corner of each eye; 'the idea of my being made such a fool of!'

'Ah! you may thank your papa, my dear,' said Mrs. Nupkins; 'how I

have implored and begged that man to inquire into the captain's

The Pickwick Papers