The hackney-coach jolted along Fleet Street, as hackney- coaches

usually do. The horses 'went better', the driver said, when they had

anything before them (they must have gone at a most extraordinary

pace when there was nothing), and so the vehicle kept behind a cart;

when the cart stopped, it stopped; and when the cart went on again, it

did the same. Mr Pickwick sat opposite the tipstaff; and the tipstaff

sat with his hat between his knees, whistling a tune, and looking out

of the coach window.

Time performs wonders. By the powerful old gentleman's aid, even a

hackney-coach gets over half a mile of ground. They stopped at length,

and Mr Pickwick alighted at the gate of the Fleet.

The tipstaff, just looking over his shoulder to see that his charge was

following close at his heels, preceded Mr Pickwick into the prison;

turning to the left, after they had entered, they passed through an

open door into a lobby, from which a heavy gate, opposite to that by

which they had entered, and which was guarded by a stout turnkey

with the key in his hand, led at once into the interior of the prison.

Here they stopped, while the tipstaff delivered his papers; and here Mr

Pickwick was apprised that he would remain, until he had undergone

the ceremony, known to the initiated as 'sitting for your portrait.'

'Sitting for my portrait?' said Mr Pickwick.

'Having your likeness taken, sir,' replied the stout turnkey. 'We're

capital hands at likenesses here. Take 'em in no time, and always

exact. Walk in, sir, and make yourself at home.'

Mr Pickwick complied with the invitation, and sat himself down; when

Mr Weller, who stationed himself at the back of the chair, whispered

that the sitting was merely another term for undergoing an inspection

by the different turnkeys, in order that they might know prisoners

from visitors.

'Well, Sam,' said Mr Pickwick, 'then I wish the artists would come.

This is rather a public place.'

'They von't be long, Sir, I des-say,' replied Sam. 'There's a Dutch clock,

sir.'

'So I see,' observed Mr Pickwick.

'And a bird-cage, sir,' says Sam. 'Veels vithin veels, a prison in a

prison. Ain't it, Sir?'

The Pickwick Papers