s, you
observe this confusion?'

'Certainly, Sir,' replied Jinks.

'Now,' said the magistrate, 'repeat your statement, Grummer, and again I
warn you to be careful. Mr. Jinks, take his words down.'

The unfortunate Grummer proceeded to re-state his complaint, but, what
between Mr. Jinks's taking down his words, and the magistrate's taking
them up, his natural tendency to rambling, and his extreme confusion,
he managed to get involved, in something under three minutes, in such
a mass of entanglement and contradiction, that Mr. Nupkins at once
declared he didn't believe him. So the fines were remitted, and
Mr. Jinks found a couple of bail in no time. And all these solemn
proceedings having been satisfactorily concluded, Mr. Grummer was
ignominiously ordered out--an awful instance of the instability of human
greatness, and the uncertain tenure of great men's favour.

Mrs. Nupkins was a majestic female in a pink gauze turban and a light
brown wig. Miss Nupkins possessed all her mamma's haughtiness without
the turban, and all her ill-nature without the wig; and whenever the
exercise of these two amiable qualities involved mother and daughter
in some unpleasant dilemma, as they not infrequently did, they
both concurred in laying the blame on the shoulders of Mr. Nupkins.
Accordingly, when Mr. Nupkins sought Mrs. Nupkins, and detailed the
communication which had been made by Mr. Pickwick, Mrs. Nupkins suddenly
recollected that she had always expected something of the kind; that she
had always said it would be so; that her advice was never taken; that
she really did not know what Mr. Nupkins supposed she was; and so forth.

'The idea!' said Miss Nupkins, forcing a tear of very scanty proportions
into the corner of each eye; 'the idea of my being made such a fool of!'

'Ah! you may thank your papa, my dear,' said Mrs. Nupkins; 'how I
have implored and begged that man to inquire into the captain's family
connections; how I have urged and entreated him to take some decisive
step! I am quite certain nobody would believe it--quite.'

'But, my dear,' said Mr. Nupkins.

'Don't talk to me, you aggravating thing, don't!' said Mrs. Nupkins.

'My love,' said Mr. Nupkins, 'you professed yourself very fond of
Captain Fitz-Marshall. You have constantly asked him here, my dear, and
you have lost no opportunity of introducing him elsewhere.'

'Didn't I say so, Henrietta?' cried Mrs. Nupkins, appealing to her
daughter with the air of