te escape, in case there was the
least tendency to a display of hostilities, Mr. Nupkins expressed his
readiness to hear the communication, whatever it might be.

'I will come to the point at once, sir,' said Mr. Pickwick; 'it affects
yourself and your credit materially. I have every reason to believe,
Sir, that you are harbouring in your house a gross impostor!'

'Two,' interrupted Sam. 'Mulberry agin all natur, for tears and
willainny!'

'Sam,' said Mr. Pickwick, 'if I am to render myself intelligible to this
gentleman, I must beg you to control your feelings.'

'Wery sorry, Sir,' replied Mr. Weller; 'but when I think o' that 'ere
Job, I can't help opening the walve a inch or two.'

'In one word, Sir,' said Mr. Pickwick, 'is my servant right in
suspecting that a certain Captain Fitz-Marshall is in the habit of
visiting here? Because,' added Mr. Pickwick, as he saw that Mr. Nupkins
was about to offer a very indignant interruption, 'because if he be, I
know that person to be a--'

'Hush, hush,' said Mr. Nupkins, closing the door. 'Know him to be what,
Sir?'

'An unprincipled adventurer--a dishonourable character--a man who preys
upon society, and makes easily-deceived people his dupes, Sir; his
absurd, his foolish, his wretched dupes, Sir,' said the excited Mr.
Pickwick.

'Dear me,' said Mr. Nupkins, turning very red, and altering his whole
manner directly. 'Dear me, Mr.--'

'Pickvick,' said Sam.

'Pickwick,' said the magistrate, 'dear me, Mr. Pickwick--pray take a
seat--you cannot mean this? Captain Fitz-Marshall!'

'Don't call him a cap'en,' said Sam, 'nor Fitz-Marshall neither; he
ain't neither one nor t'other. He's a strolling actor, he is, and his
name's Jingle; and if ever there was a wolf in a mulberry suit, that
'ere Job Trotter's him.'

'It is very true, Sir,' said Mr. Pickwick, replying to the magistrate's
look of amazement; 'my only business in this town, is to expose the
person of whom we now speak.'

Mr. Pickwick proceeded to pour into the horror-stricken ear of Mr.
Nupkins, an abridged account of all Mr. Jingle's atrocities. He related
how he had first met him; how he had eloped with Miss Wardle; how he had
cheerfully resigned the lady for a pecuniary consideration; how he had
entrapped himself into a lady's boarding-school at midnight; and how
he (Mr. Pickwick) now felt it his duty to expose his assumption of his
present name and rank.

As the narrative proceeded, all the warm blood in