‘My dear sir,’ interposed Mr. Winkle.
‘_DEAR _Sir!’ replied Pott. ‘How dare you address me, as dear Sir, Sir? How dare you look me in the face and do it, sir?’
‘Well, Sir, if you come to that,’ responded Mr. Winkle, ‘how dare you look me in the face, and call me a serpent, sir?’
‘Because you are one,’ replied Mr. Pott.
‘Prove it, Sir,’ said Mr. Winkle warmly. ‘Prove it.’
A malignant scowl passed over the profound face of the editor, as he drew from his pocket the _Independent_ of that morning; and laying his finger on a particular paragraph, threw the journal across the table to Mr. Winkle.
That gentleman took it up, and read as follows:--
‘Our obscure and filthy contemporary, in some disgusting observations on the recent election for this borough, has presumed to violate the hallowed sanctity of private life, and to refer in a manner not to be misunderstood, to the personal affairs of our late candidate--aye, and notwithstanding his base defeat, we will add, our future member, Mr. Fizkin. What does our dastardly contemporary mean? What would the ruffian say, if we, setting at naught, like him, the decencies of social intercourse, were to raise the curtain which happily conceals _His_ private life from general ridicule, not to say from general execration? What, if we were even to point out, and comment on, facts and circumstances, which are publicly notorious, and beheld by every one but our mole-eyed contemporary--what if we were to print the following effusion, which we received while we were writing the commencement of this article, from a talented fellow-townsman and correspondent?
‘“LINES TO A BRASS POT
‘“Oh Pott! if you’d known How false she’d have grown, When you heard the marriage bells tinkle; You’d have done then, I vow, What you cannot help now,
‘What,’ said Mr. Pott solemnly--‘what rhymes to “tinkle,” villain?’
‘What rhymes to tinkle?’ said Mrs. Pott, whose entrance at the moment forestalled the reply. ‘What rhymes to tinkle? Why, Winkle, I should conceive.’ Saying this, Mrs. Pott smiled sweetly on the disturbed Pickwickian, and extended her hand towards him. The agitated young man would have accepted it, in his confusion, had not Pott indignantly interposed.
‘Back, ma’am--back!’ said the editor. ‘Take his hand before my very face!’
‘Mr. P.!’ said his astonished lady.
‘Wretched woman, look here,’ exclaimed the husband. ‘Look here, ma’am-- “Lines to a Brass Pot.” “Brass Pot”; that’s me, ma’am. “False _she’d_ have grown”; that’s you, ma’am--you.’ With this ebullition of rage, which was not unaccompanied with something like a tremble, at the expression of his wife’s face, Mr. Pott dashed the current number of the Eatanswill _Independent_ at her feet.
‘Upon my word, Sir,’ said the astonished Mrs. Pott, stooping to pick up the paper. ‘Upon my word, Sir!’
Mr. Pott winced beneath the contemptuous gaze of his wife. He had made a desperate struggle to screw up his courage, but it was fast coming unscrewed again.
There appears nothing very tremendous in this little sentence, ‘Upon my word, sir,’ when it comes to be read; but the tone of voice in which it was delivered, and the look that accompanied it, both seeming to bear reference to some revenge to be thereafter visited upon the head of Pott, produced their effect upon him. The most unskilful observer could have detected in his troubled countenance, a readiness to resign his Wellington boots to any efficient substitute who would have consented to stand in them at that moment.
Mrs. Pott read the paragraph, uttered a loud shriek, and threw herself at full length on the hearth-rug, screaming, and tapping it with the heels of her shoes, in a manner which could leave no doubt of the propriety of her feelings on the occasion.
‘My dear,’ said the terrified Pott, ‘I didn’t say I believed it;--I--’ but the unfortunate man’s voice was drowned in the screaming of his partner.
‘Mrs. Pott, let me entreat you, my dear ma’am, to compose yourself,’ said Mr. Winkle; but the shrieks and tappings were louder, and more frequent than ever.
‘My dear,’ said Mr. Pott, ‘I’m very sorry. If you won’t consider your own health, consider me, my dear. We shall have a crowd round the house.’ But the more strenuously Mr. Pott entreated, the more vehemently the screams poured forth.
Very fortunately, however, attached to Mrs. Pott’s person was a bodyguard of one, a young lady whose ostensible employment was to preside over her toilet, but who rendered herself useful in a variety of ways, and in none more so than in the particular department of constantly aiding and abetting her mistress in every wish and inclination opposed to the desires of the unhappy Pott. The screams reached this young lady’s ears in due course, and brought her into the room with a speed which threatened to derange, materially, the very exquisite arrangement of her cap and ringlets.
‘Oh, my dear, dear mistress!’ exclaimed the bodyguard, kneeling frantically by the side of the prostrate Mrs. Pott. ‘Oh, my dear mistress, what is the matter?’
‘Your master--your brutal master,’ murmured the patient.
Pott was evidently giving way.
‘It’s a shame,’ said the bodyguard reproachfully. ‘I know he’ll be the death on you, ma’am. Poor dear thing!’
He gave way more. The opposite party followed up the attack.
‘Oh, don’t leave me--don’t leave me, Goodwin,’ murmured Mrs. Pott, clutching at the wrist of the said Goodwin with an hysteric jerk. ‘You’re the only person that’s kind to me, Goodwin.’
At this affecting appeal, Goodwin got up a little domestic tragedy of her own, and shed tears copiously.
‘Never, ma’am--never,’ said Goodwin. ‘Oh, sir, you should be careful-- you should indeed; you don’t know what harm you may do missis; you’ll be sorry for it one day, I know--I’ve always said so.’
The unlucky Pott looked timidly on, but said nothing.
‘Goodwin,’ said Mrs. Pott, in a soft voice.
‘Ma’am,’ said Goodwin.
‘If you only knew how I have loved that man--’
Don’t distress yourself by recollecting it, ma’am,’ said the bodyguard.
Pott looked very frightened. It was time to finish him.
‘And now,’ sobbed Mrs. Pott, ‘now, after all, to be treated in this way; to be reproached and insulted in the presence of a third party, and that party almost a stranger. But I will not submit to it! Goodwin,’ continued Mrs. Pott, raising herself in the arms of her attendant, ‘my brother, the lieutenant, shall interfere. I’ll be separated, Goodwin!’
‘It would certainly serve him right, ma’am,’ said Goodwin.
Whatever thoughts the threat of a separation might have awakened in Mr. Pott’s mind, he forbore to give utterance to them, and contented himself by saying, with great humility:--
‘My dear, will you hear me?’
A fresh train of sobs was the only reply, as Mrs. Pott grew more hysterical, requested to be informed why she was ever born, and required sundry other pieces of information of a similar description.
‘My dear,’ remonstrated Mr. Pott, ‘do not give way to these sensitive feelings. I never believed that the paragraph had any foundation, my dear--impossible. I was only angry, my dear--I may say outrageous--with the _Independent_ people for daring to insert it; that’s all.’ Mr. Pott cast an imploring look at the innocent cause of the mischief, as if to entreat him to say nothing about the serpent.
‘And what steps, sir, do you mean to take to obtain redress?’ inquired Mr. Winkle, gaining courage as he saw Pott losing it.
‘Oh, Goodwin,’ observed Mrs. Pott, ‘does he mean to horsewhip the editor of the _Independent_--does he, Goodwin?’
‘Hush, hush, ma’am; pray keep yourself quiet,’ replied the bodyguard. ‘I dare say he will, if you wish it, ma’am.’
‘Certainly,’ said Pott, as his wife evinced decided symptoms of going off again. ‘Of course I shall.’
‘When, Goodwin--when?’ said Mrs. Pott, still undecided about the going off.
‘Immediately, of course,’ said Mr. Pott; ‘before the day is out.’
‘Oh, Goodwin,’ resumed Mrs. Pott, ‘it’s the only way of meeting the slander, and setting me right with the world.’
‘Certainly, ma’am,’ replied Goodwin. ‘No man as is a man, ma’am, could refuse to do it.’
So, as the hysterics were still hovering about, Mr. Pott said once more that he would do it; but Mrs. Pott was so overcome at the bare idea of having ever been suspected, that she was half a dozen times on the very verge of a relapse, and most unquestionably would have gone off, had it not been for the indefatigable efforts of the assiduous Goodwin, and repeated entreaties for pardon from the conquered Pott; and finally, when that unhappy individual had been frightened and snubbed down to his proper level, Mrs. Pott recovered, and they went to breakfast.
‘You will not allow this base newspaper slander to shorten your stay here, Mr. Winkle?’ said Mrs. Pott, smiling through the traces of her tears.
‘I hope not,’ said Mr. Pott, actuated, as he spoke, by a wish that his visitor would choke himself with the morsel of dry toast which he was raising to his lips at the moment, and so terminate his stay effectually.
‘I hope not.’
‘You are very good,’ said Mr. Winkle; ‘but a letter has been received from Mr. Pickwick--so I learn by a note from Mr. Tupman, which was brought up to my bedroom door, this morning--in which he requests us to join him at Bury to-day; and we are to leave by the coach at noon.’