stone bottle, which might hold about a couple of quarts, from beneath

his bedstead, filled out three glasses of gin, which Job Trotter and

Sam disposed of in a most workmanlike manner.

Any more?' said the whistling gentleman.

No more,' replied Job Trotter.

Mr Pickwick paid, the door was unbolted, and out they came; the

uncombed gentleman bestowing a friendly nod upon Mr Roker, who

happened to be passing at the moment.

From this spot, Mr Pickwick wandered along all the galleries, up and

down all the staircases, and once again round the whole area of the

yard. The great body of the prison population appeared to be Mivins,

and Smangle, and the parson, and the butcher, and the leg, over and

over, and over again. There were the same squalor, the same turmoil

and noise, the same general characteristics, in every corner; in the

best and the worst alike. The whole place seemed restless and

troubled; and the people were crowding and flitting to and fro, like the

shadows in an uneasy dream.

'I have seen enough,' said Mr Pickwick, as he threw himself into a

chair in his little apartment. 'My head aches with these scenes, and

my heart too. Henceforth I will be a prisoner in my own room.'

And Mr Pickwick steadfastly adhered to this determination. For three

long months he remained shut up, all day; only stealing out at night

to breathe the air, when the greater part of his fellow-prisoners were

in bed or carousing in their rooms. His health was beginning to suffer

from the closeness of the confinement, but neither the often-repeated

entreaties of Perker and his friends, nor the still more frequently-

repeated warnings and admonitions of Mr Samuel Weller, could

induce him to alter one jot of his inflexible resolution.

The Pickwick Papers