Mr. Pickwick, it will be remembered, made a communication to Mr. Nupkins which changed the whole state of affairs. Mr. Nupkins, with all his insolent despotism, was held in check by conference with his clerk, Jinks, who kept him from making mistakes by judicious hints. Fang's clerk, like Mr. Jinks, interposed: "How do you propose to deal with the case, sir?" inquired the clerk, in a low voice. Mr. Jinks pulled him by the sleeve and whispered something. He was evidently remonstrating. At length the magistrate, gulping down with a very bad grace his disinclination to hear anything more, said sharply, "What do you want to say?" When Mr. Fang was about to commit Oliver, the Bookstall-keeper rushed in, and insisted on being heard, and, like Mr. Nupkins, Mr. Fang had to listen: "I demand to be sworn," said the man, "I will not be put down." "Swear the man," growled Mr. Fang, with a very ill grace. "Now, what have you got to say?" Again, Mr. Nupkins said of Sam: "He is evidently a desperate ruffian." "He is my servant, sir," said Mr. Pickwick, angrily. "Oh, he is your servant, is he. A conspiracy to defeat the ends of justice." Compare Fang and the Bookseller: "That book, is it paid for? No, it is not." "Dear me, I forgot all about it," exclaimed the old gentleman. "A nice person to prepare a charge against a poor boy," said Fang; "the law will overtake you yet, &c." and so on. In short, Nupkins is a softened edition of Fang. It was curious that he turned out at the end not altogether so badly, and there is certainly a little inconsistency in the character. After Mr. Pickwick's disclosures, he becomes very rational and amiable. We may wonder, too, how the latter could have accepted hospitality from, or have sat down at the board of, the man who treated him in so gross a fashion, and, further, that after accepting this entertainment, Mr. Pickwick should take an heroic and injured tone, recalling his injuries as he withdrew, but _after_ his dinner. This magistrate was despotic enough, but we might have expected that he would have had Mr. Peter Magnus brought before him also, and have issued a warrant. The lady, however, was silent as to her admirer, and this difficulty appears to have occurred to the author for he makes Mr. Nupkins remark: "The other principal _you say_ has absconded," she having said nothing whatever. Being at the "White Horse," too, he was accessible. He may, however, have gone off to secure "a friend."