Pickwick Abroad: or, The Tour in France — page 361: what you’re looking at

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300 | Pickwick Abroad. remember. Three months before the period of which we are now writing (that is, of the transactions in the Insolvents’ Court) Mr. Sug- den made his appearance in England and at Mr. Stickemin’s shop ; and the consequence of the visit was that a quantity of clothes were ‘duly ordered, and forwarded to Mr. Sugden’s lodgings in Maddox Street, Mr. Stickemin fancying that as his debtor’s father had already paid his son’s bill once, the same result might attend a renewai of credit in that quarter. ‘“You may put any questions you please to the Insolvent,” said Mr. Commissioner Buckphiz, who had been making copious notes of a new-projected bill for the Abolition of Imprisonment for Debt in the book in which it was usually supposed that he wrote the leading fea- tures of the cases before him. ‘Were there not six pairs of buckskin hunting-breeches among the things I sent to your lodgings?” demanded Mr. Anthony Stick. emin of Mr. William Sugden. ‘‘T shouldn’t be surprised if there were,’ answered the last aeined gentleman with his characteristic off-hand manner. ‘¢And did you not pawn them at Mr. Clegg’s in Prince’s Street?” continued the tailor. | ‘‘You’ve hit the right nail on the head again, old fellow,” replied the Insolvent. ‘‘ It’s the proper sow you’ve got by the ear, as my friend the Great Cham of Tartary used to say.’ Here Mr. Commissioner Buckphiz again interfered to remind Mr, Sugden that he must give direct answers to the questions of his op- posing creditor; whereupon Mr. Sugden refreshed himself with another pinch of snuff, nodded familiarly at the Commissioner, muttered some- thing which sounded ver y much like the words ‘I twig,” and then assumed an attitude of the most profound attention. it ‘‘Did you not tell me,” continued Mr. Anthony hrckentin: ‘in order to obtain fresh credit with me, that your father had come 7 Phe with the stumpy, as you called it?” P x ‘“ Certainly,” answered Mr. Sugden. = = ‘¢‘ And did you not say that you were going te. stand for: some bo- rough in Hampshire, as you had sufficient influence in that part of the country to turn an election, whereas you hagas even the oe to turn a shilling 2” — Here Mr. Commissioner Buckphiz, who never permitted an insol- vent to utter any thing in the shape of a joke, facetiously observed ‘‘that he thought Mr. Sugden had got into the wrong box at last ;” whereat there was a general laugh, which of course was not inter- rupted by the Commissioner, Mr. Sugden himself indulged in a cachinnation so loud and long that he quite won the heart of the Com- missioner, who from that moment determined to discharge him, how- ever dark might be the features of the case. : But Mr. Stickemin had-not laughed; so, when order was once more restored, Mr. Commissioner Buckphiz desired him in a very savage voice to “make haste with his opposition, and not waste the precious time of the Court, or he should know the reason why.” ‘* But, Sir—” began the discomfited tailor. “Don’t address yourself to me: address yourself to the Insolvent, Sir,” cried Mr. Commissioner Buckphiz. EGomichbooks.co <=