England -- Fiction; Humorous stories; Male friendship -- Fiction; Men -- Societies and clubs -- Fiction
The morning came: it was a pleasant sight to behold Mr. Tupman in full
brigand’s costume, with a very tight jacket, sitting like a pincushion
over his back and shoulders, the upper portion of his legs incased in
the velvet shorts, and the lower part thereof swathed in the complicated
bandages to which all brigands are peculiarly attached. It was pleasing
to see his open and ingenuous countenance, well mustachioed and corked,
looking out from an open shirt collar; and to contemplate the sugar-loaf
hat, decorated with ribbons of all colours, which he was compelled to
carry on his knee, inasmuch as no known conveyance with a top to it,
would admit of any man’s carrying it between his head and the roof.
Equally humorous and agreeable was the appearance of Mr. Snodgrass in
blue satin trunks and cloak, white silk tights and shoes, and Grecian
helmet, which everybody knows (and if they do not, Mr. Solomon Lucas
did) to have been the regular, authentic, everyday costume of a
troubadour, from the earliest ages down to the time of their final
disappearance from the face of the earth. All this was pleasant, but
this was as nothing compared with the shouting of the populace when the
carriage drew up, behind Mr. Pott’s chariot, which chariot itself drew
up at Mr. Pott’s door, which door itself opened, and displayed the great
Pott accoutred as a Russian officer of justice, with a tremendous knout
in his hand--tastefully typical of the stern and mighty power of the
Eatanswill _Gazette_, and the fearful lashings it bestowed on public
offenders.
‘Bravo!’ shouted Mr. Tupman and Mr. Snodgrass from the passage, when
they beheld the walking allegory.
‘Bravo!’ Mr. Pickwick was heard to exclaim, from the passage.
‘Hoo-roar Pott!’ shouted the populace. Amid these salutations, Mr. Pott,
smiling with that kind of bland dignity which sufficiently testified
that he felt his power, and knew how to exert it, got into the chariot.
Then there emerged from the house, Mrs. Pott, who would have looked very
like Apollo if she hadn’t had a gown on, conducted by Mr. Winkle, who,
in his light-red coat could not possibly have been mistaken for anything
but a sportsman, if he had not borne an equal resemblance to a general
postman. Last of all came Mr. Pickwick, whom the boys applauded as loud
as anybody, probably under the impression that his tights and gaiters
were some remnants of the dark ages; and then the two vehicles proceeded
towards Mrs. Leo Hunter’s; Mr. Weller (who was to assist in waiting)
being stationed on the box of that in which his master was seated.
Every one of the men, women, boys, girls, and babies, who were assembled
to see the visitors in their fancy-dresses, screamed with delight and
ecstasy, when Mr. Pickwick, with the brigand on one arm, and the
troubadour on the other, walked solemnly up the entrance. Never were
such shouts heard as those which greeted Mr. Tupman’s efforts to fix the
sugar-loaf hat on his head, by way of entering the garden in style.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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