Pickwick Abroad: A Companion to the Pickwick Papers — page 72: what you’re looking at

Machine-transcribed from the original scan — historical spelling and the odd misread are preserved.

" PICKWICK ABROAD. 62 some remuneration to get them back again ; , money may be lost in so speedy and highly e ’* and as those clients were chiefly young men about town, who had a certain appearance to keep-up, it did not suit them to expose the bad’ state of their affairs by commen- cing legal proceedings against the firm of which Mr. William Sugden was the sole support and representative. But at length, to use his father’s own expressive language, “he was blown,” and obliged to shift his quarters to the cool and tranquil retreat afforded by a garret in the Lanthorn and Cat itself. | Mr. William Sugden’s talents were, how- ever, of too brilliant a nature to be con- cealed in the unsentimental abode their proprietor had now chosen; and a farther supply of coin, to which he prudently helped himself from his parent’s till, ena- bled him to make a short tour in the West of England, accompanied by sundry packs of cards and pairs of dice, which he had previously arranged to suit his own pecu- liar purposes. It is uncertain in what manner this extraordinary young man availed himself, during his tour, of those means which nature and a little art had placed at his disposal. There was, how- ever, a strange story afloat at the time, re- lative to a certain individual of a certain description having been detected in certain nefarious practices with the dice, at a cer- tain mess-table in a certain town; and a few other little circumstances that bore collateral reference to this rumor, at once established in Mr. Sugden senior’s mind, the conviction of the identity of his son and heir with the individual alluded to. Be that as it may, it is a well-known and indisputable fact, that Mr. William Sug- den returned to London with a few hun- dred pounds in his pocket, and became a regular visitor to the various gambling- houses with which the West End of the English metropolis is so eminently adorned. Malicious people have ventured to assert that the young gentleman himself became “a bonnet” or decoy at one of the princi- pal establishments he was thus pleased to honor with his presence ; but as to the truth of so gross an assertion there exists no real evidence. Suffice it to say, that in a very short period Mr. Sugden amassed the sum of a thousand pounds, or thereabouts, and that he had created for himself a snug and quiet little circle of acquaintance, the chief members of which were the proprietors ‘and irequeniers of the pandemonia where satisfactory a manner. Mr. William Sugden now set up in busi- ness as a “young man about town,” and dropping his own hereditary patronymic, . adopted the more aristocratic one of Adol- phus Crashem. But in every instance was the extraordinary family failmg with which he was afflicted, more and more developed. He not only forgot to pay the stipulated price for the various ar- ticles he profusely ordered from about six- teen different jewellers resident at the West End of London; but, in a state of uncer- tainty as to the real owner of the goods thus supplied, and with a view to their se- curity which speaks volumes for his pru- dence and forethought, he conveyed them to the safe and assured custody of the near- est pawnbroker. Indeed, to do him fall justice, he subsequently handed over the duplicates to the aforesaid jewellers, when interrogated as to the manner in which the property had been disposed of. Virtue seldom meets with its reward in this life. The sixteen jewellers, aided by Messieurs Stickemin and Nagsflesh—the two individuals before alluded to, concocted a base and Cataline-like conspiracy against the peace and well-bemg of Mr. Adolphus Crashem. These misguided men, In a moment of opaqueness not easily conceived by the intelligent reader, ventured to ac- cuse their victim of a variety of nefarious and fraudulent practices, the full meaning of which his upright and correct mind - could not readily imagine. The ideas of his conspirators were however conveyed to him through the organ of a_police-officer ; but, not choosing to be even suspected of dis- honesty, he prudently made his escape from the clutches of B 155, and fled to France, whither the machinations of his enemies, he fondly hoped, could scarcely follow him. Such was the concise account of Mr. Crashem’s early adventures, which Mr. Pick- wie canes from the statement of that gentleman’s father. When the narrative was brought to a conclusion, our venerated hero summoned his domestic and friends, and desired them toaccompany himself and Mr. Sugden to the New Prison. This re- quest was immediately complied with; and in about three quarters of an hour, the little party was unpacked from a hackney-coach, at the gate of the edifice just named. Mr. Pickwick led the way; and the procession passed on towards the apartment occupied (C(O) Go LOOKS