ppearance of the present
number in its usual course; that, hereafter, it will continue to be
published with its accustomed regularity. However superfluous this
_second notice_ may appear to many, it is rendered necessary by
various idle speculations and absurdities which have been
industriously propagated during the past month and which have reached
the author's ears from many quarters, and have grieved him
exceedingly. By one set of intimate acquaintances, especially well-
informed, he has been killed outright; by another, driven mad; by a
third, imprisoned for debt; by a fourth, left per steamer for the
United States; by a fifth, rendered incapable of mental exertion for
evermore; by all, in short, represented as doing anything but seeking
by a few weeks' retirement, the restoration of cheerfulness and peace,
of which a sad bereavement has necessarily deprived him.

CHAPTER IX. THE PICKWICK CLUB

This was a common form of social meeting, and we find in the memoirs of
Adolphus and John Taylor and Frederick Reynolds descriptions of the "Keep
the Line," "The Finish," and other oddly-named societies. The cheerful
glass was the chief object. Mr. Lowten's Club, "The Magpie and Stump,"
in Clare Market, supplies a specimen of a lower class club. "Veels
vithin veels," as Sam would say.

In his speech at Dulwich, at the close of the book, Mr. Pickwick spoke
rather pathetically of the closing of his wanderings. "I shall never
forget having devoted the greater part of two years to mixing with
different varieties and shades of human character, frivolous as my
pursuit of novelty may have appeared to many." He spoke of the club
also, to which "he had communicated both personally and by letter,"
acquainting them with his intention of withdrawing from public life to
the country. He added that "during our long absence it had suffered much
from internal dissensions," and this, with other reasons, had obliged him
to dissolve it. This "absence," both as planned and carried out, was
merely occasional. Mr. Pickwick and his friends were rarely, and only
now and then, absent from town, going away for short spells, save, of
course, the enforced absence in the Fleet Prison and the months or weeks
(as it may be) in Bath. "The George and Vulture" was not far from Huggin
Lane, so Mr. Pickwick must have been constantly at the Club, or _could_
have been had he chosen to go there. All this