d it to have been rudely carved by
himself in an idle mood, and to display letters intended to bear neither
more or less than the simple construction of--'BILL STUMPS, HIS MARK';
and that Mr. Stumps, being little in the habit of original composition,
and more accustomed to be guided by the sound of words than by the
strict rules of orthography, had omitted the concluding 'L' of his
Christian name.

The Pickwick Club (as might have been expected from so enlightened an
institution) received this statement with the contempt it deserved,
expelled the presumptuous and ill-conditioned Blotton from the society,
and voted Mr. Pickwick a pair of gold spectacles, in token of their
confidence and approbation: in return for which, Mr. Pickwick caused a
portrait of himself to be painted, and hung up in the club room.

Mr. Blotton was ejected but not conquered. He also wrote a pamphlet,
addressed to the seventeen learned societies, native and foreign,
containing a repetition of the statement he had already made, and
rather more than half intimating his opinion that the seventeen learned
societies were so many 'humbugs.' Hereupon, the virtuous indignation of
the seventeen learned societies being roused, several fresh pamphlets
appeared; the foreign learned societies corresponded with the native
learned societies; the native learned societies translated the pamphlets
of the foreign learned societies into English; the foreign learned
societies translated the pamphlets of the native learned societies into
all sorts of languages; and thus commenced that celebrated scientific
discussion so well known to all men, as the Pickwick controversy.

But this base attempt to injure Mr. Pickwick recoiled upon the head of
its calumnious author. The seventeen learned societies unanimously voted
the presumptuous Blotton an ignorant meddler, and forthwith set to work
upon more treatises than ever. And to this day the stone remains, an
illegible monument of Mr. Pickwick's greatness, and a lasting trophy to
the littleness of his enemies.

CHAPTER XII. DESCRIPTIVE OF A VERY IMPORTANT PROCEEDING ON THE PART OF
Mr. PICKWICK; NO LESS AN EPOCH IN HIS LIFE, THAN IN THIS HISTORY

Mr. Pickwick's apartments in Goswell Street, although on a limited
scale, were not only of a very neat and comfortable description,
but peculiarly adapted for the residence of a man of his genius and
observation. His sitting-room was the first-floor front, his bedroom the
sec