Whiffers (everybody looked at the individual in orange), our friend Mr

Whiffers has resigned.'

Universal astonishment fell upon the hearers. Each gentleman looked

in his neighbour's face, and then transferred his glance to the

upstanding coachman.

'You may well be sapparised, gentlemen,' said the coachman. 'I will

not wenchure to state the reasons of this irrepairabel loss to the

service, but I will beg Mr Whiffers to state them himself, for the

improvement and imitation of his admiring friends.'

The suggestion being loudly approved of, Mr Whiffers explained. He

said he certainly could have wished to have continued to hold the

appointment he had just resigned. The uniform was extremely rich

and expensive, the females of the family was most agreeable, and the

duties of the situation was not, he was bound to say, too heavy; the

principal service that was required of him, being, that he should look

out of the hall window as much as possible, in company with another

gentleman, who had also resigned. He could have wished to have

spared that company the painful and disgusting detail on which he

was about to enter, but as the explanation had been demanded of

him, he had no alternative but to state, boldly and distinctly, that he

had been required to eat cold meat.

It is impossible to conceive the disgust which this avowal awakened in

the bosoms of the hearers. Loud cries of 'Shame,' mingled with groans

and hisses, prevailed for a quarter of an hour.

Mr Whiffers then added that he feared a portion of this outrage might

be traced to his own forbearing and accommodating disposition. He

had a distinct recollection of having once consented to eat salt butter,

and he had, moreover, on an occasion of sudden sickness in the

house, so far forgotten himself as to carry a coal-scuttle up to the

second floor. He trusted he had not lowered himself in the good

opinion of his friends by this frank confession of his faults; and he

hoped the promptness with which he had resented the last unmanly

outrage on his feelings, to which he had referred, would reinstate him

in their good opinion, if he had.

Mr Whiffers's address was responded to, with a shout of admiration,

and the health of the interesting martyr was drunk in a most

enthusiastic manner; for this, the martyr returned thanks, and

proposed their visitor, Mr Weller - a gentleman whom he had not the

pleasure of an intimate acquaintance with, but who was the friend of

Mr John Smauker, which was a sufficient letter of recommendation to

any society of gentlemen whatever, or wherever. On this account, he

should have been disposed to have given Mr Weller's health with all

The Pickwick Papers