the ground, or upon a few chairs, for the younger ones to pass the

night in. And in a fourth, and a fifth, and a sixth, and a seventh, the

noise, and the beer, and the tobacco smoke, and the cards, all came

over again in greater force than before.

In the galleries themselves, and more especially on the stair- cases,

there lingered a great number of people, who came there, some

because their rooms were empty and lonesome, others because their

rooms were full and hot; the greater part because they were restless

and uncomfortable, and not possessed of the secret of exactly knowing

what to do with themselves. There were many classes of people here,

from the labouring man in his fustian jacket, to the broken-down

spendthrift in his shawl dressing-gown, most appropriately out at

elbows; but there was the same air about them all - a kind of listless,

jail-bird, careless swagger, a vagabondish who's-afraid sort of bearing,

which is wholly indescribable in words, but which any man can

understand in one moment if he wish, by setting foot in the nearest

debtors' prison, and looking at the very first group of people he sees

there, with the same interest as Mr Pickwick did.

'It strikes me, Sam,' said Mr Pickwick, leaning over the iron rail at the

stair-head-'it strikes me, Sam, that imprisonment for debt is scarcely

any punishment at all.'

'Think not, sir?' inquired Mr Weller.

'You see how these fellows drink, and smoke, and roar,' replied Mr

Pickwick. 'It's quite impossible that they can mind it much.'

Ah, that's just the wery thing, Sir,' rejoined Sam, 'they don't mind it;

it's a reg'lar holiday to them - all porter and skittles. It's the t'other

vuns as gets done over vith this sort o' thing; them down-hearted

fellers as can't svig avay at the beer, nor play at skittles neither; them

as vould pay if they could, and gets low by being boxed up. I'll tell you

wot it is, sir; them as is always a-idlin' in public-houses it don't

damage at all, and them as is alvays a-workin' wen they can, it

damages too much. ‘It's unekal,’ as my father used to say wen his grog

worn't made half- and-half: ‘it's unekal, and that's the fault on it.’'

I think you're right, Sam,' said Mr Pickwick, after a few moments'

reflection, 'quite right.'

'P'raps, now and then, there's some honest people as likes it,' observed

Mr Weller, in a ruminative tone, 'but I never heerd o' one as I can call

to mind, 'cept the little dirty-faced man in the brown coat; and that

was force of habit.'

'And who was he?' inquired Mr Pickwick.

The Pickwick Papers