artifices as these? The next has no date whatever, which is in itself

suspicious. ‘Dear Mrs. B., I shall not be at home till to-morrow. Slow

coach.’ And then follows this very remarkable expression. ‘Don't

trouble yourself about the warming-pan.’ The warming-pan! Why,

gentlemen, who DOES trouble himself about a warming-pan? When

was the peace of mind of man or woman broken or disturbed by a

warming-pan, which is in itself a harmless, a useful, and I will add,

gentlemen, a comforting article of domestic furniture? Why is Mrs.

Bardell so earnestly entreated not to agitate herself about this

warming-pan, unless (as is no doubt the case) it is a mere cover for

hidden fire - a mere substitute for some endearing word or promise,

agreeably to a preconcerted system of correspondence, artfully

contrived by Pickwick with a view to his contemplated desertion, and

which I am not in a condition to explain? And what does this allusion

to the slow coach mean? For aught I know, it may be a reference to

Pickwick himself, who has most unquestionably been a criminally

slow coach during the whole of this transaction, but whose speed will

now be very unexpectedly accelerated, and whose wheels, gentlemen,

as he will find to his cost, will very soon be greased by you!'

Mr Serjeant Buzfuz paused in this place, to see whether the jury

smiled at his joke; but as nobody took it but the greengrocer, whose

sensitiveness on the subject was very probably occasioned by his

having subjected a chaise-cart to the process in question on that

identical morning, the learned Serjeant considered it advisable to

undergo a slight relapse into the dismals before he concluded.

'But enough of this, gentlemen,' said Mr Serjeant Buzfuz, 'it is difficult

to smile with an aching heart; it is ill jesting when our deepest

sympathies are awakened. My client's hopes and prospects are ruined,

and it is no figure of speech to say that her occupation is gone indeed.

The bill is down - but there is no tenant. Eligible single gentlemen

pass and repass-but there is no invitation for to inquire within or

without. All is gloom and silence in the house; even the voice of the

child is hushed; his infant sports are disregarded when his mother

weeps; his ‘alley tors’ and his ‘commoneys’ are alike neglected; he

forgets the long familiar cry of ‘knuckle down,’ and at tip-cheese, or

odd and even, his hand is out. But Pickwick, gentlemen, Pickwick, the

ruthless destroyer of this domestic oasis in the desert of Goswell

Street - Pickwick who has choked up the well, and thrown ashes on

the sward - Pickwick, who comes before you to-day with his heartless

tomato sauce and warming-pans - Pickwick still rears his head with

unblushing effrontery, and gazes without a sigh on the ruin he has

made. Damages, gentlemen - heavy damages is the only punishment

with which you can visit him; the only recompense you can award to

my client. And for those damages she now appeals to an enlightened,

a high-minded, a right-feeling, a conscientious, a dispassionate, a

sympathising, a contemplative jury of her civilised countrymen.' With

The Pickwick Papers