l in pursuit of adventure. He airily dismissed the matter. We
may wonder whether he made any remonstrance to his landlady before his
departure. Probably he did not, fancying that she had been merely in a
slight fit of the "tantrums."

At Bury, however, after the boarding-school adventure, he was to be
painfully awakened. He was sitting with his friends after dinner at the
"Angel," in his happiest mood. Winkle had related his quarrel with Pott
_in re_ Mrs. Pott, in a humorous fashion when one of the most delightful
of humorous scenes followed.

Mr. Pickwick was proceeding with his scathing rebuke, when Sam enters
with a letter.

'I don't know this hand,' said Mr. Pickwick, opening the letter.
'Mercy on us! what's this? It must be a jest; it--it--can't be
true.'

'What's the matter?' was the general inquiry.

'Nobody dead, is there?' said Wardle, alarmed at the horror in Mr.
Pickwick's countenance.

Mr. Pickwick made no reply, but, pushing the letter across the table,
and desiring Mr. Tupman to read it aloud, fell back in his chair with
a look of vacant astonishment quite alarming to behold.

Mr. Tupman, with a trembling voice, read the letter, of which the
following is a copy:--

'_Freeman's Court_, _Cornhill_, _August_ 28_th_, 1827.
_Bardell against Pickwick_.

_Sir_,

_Having been instructed by Mrs. Martha Bardell to commence an action
against you for a breach of promise of marriage_, _for which the
plaintiff lays her damages at fifteen hundred pounds_, _we beg to
inform you that a writ has been issued against you in this suit in
the Court of Common Pleas_; _and request to know_, _by return of
post_, _the name of your attorney in London_, _who will accept
service thereof_.

_We are_, _Sir_,
_Your obedient servants_,
_DODSON & FOGG_.

Mr. Samuel Pickwick.'

So Mr. Pickwick, the general mentor, the philosopher and friend--the man
of high moral tone, "born to set the world aright"--the general lecturer
of his "followers," was now in for an action at law of the most awkward
and unpleasant kind. To be philandering with one's landlady! rather low
form this. But what would they say down at Manor