One of 'em's a parson,' said Mr Roker, filling up a little piece of paper

as he spoke; 'another's a butcher.'

Eh?' exclaimed Mr Pickwick.

A butcher,' repeated Mr Roker, giving the nib of his pen a tap on the

desk to cure it of a disinclination to mark. 'What a thorough-paced

goer he used to be sure-ly! You remember Tom Martin, Neddy?' said

Roker, appealing to another man in the lodge, who was paring the

mud off his shoes with a five-and- twenty-bladed pocket-knife.

I should think so,' replied the party addressed, with a strong

emphasis on the personal pronoun.

Bless my dear eyes!' said Mr Roker, shaking his head slowly from side

to side, and gazing abstractedly out of the grated windows before him,

as if he were fondly recalling some peaceful scene of his early youth; 'it

seems but yesterday that he whopped the coal-heaver down Fox-

under-the-Hill by the wharf there. I think I can see him now, a-coming

up the Strand between the two street-keepers, a little sobered by the

bruising, with a patch o' winegar and brown paper over his right

eyelid, and that 'ere lovely bulldog, as pinned the little boy arterwards,

a-following at his heels. What a rum thing time is, ain't it, Neddy?'

The gentleman to whom these observations were addressed, who

appeared of a taciturn and thoughtful cast, merely echoed the inquiry;

Mr Roker, shaking off the poetical and gloomy train of thought into

which he had been betrayed, descended to the common business of

life, and resumed his pen.

Do you know what the third gentlemen is?' inquired Mr Pickwick, not

very much gratified by this description of his future associates.

What is that Simpson, Neddy?' said Mr Roker, turning to his

companion.

What Simpson?' said Neddy.

Why, him in twenty-seven in the third, that this gentleman's going to

be chummed on.'

'Oh, him!' replied Neddy; 'he's nothing exactly. He WAS a horse

chaunter: he's a leg now.'

'Ah, so I thought,' rejoined Mr Roker, closing the book, and placing the

small piece of paper in Mr Pickwick's hands. 'That's the ticket, sir.'

The Pickwick Papers