Mr. Blotton, with a mean desire to
tarnish the lustre of the immortal name of Pickwick, actually
undertook a journey to Cobham in person, and on his return,
sarcastically observed in an oration at the club, that he had seen
the man from whom the stone was purchased; that the man
presumed the stone to be ancient, but solemnly denied the
antiquity of the inscription--inasmuch as he represented it to
have been rudely carved by himself in an idle mood, and to
display letters intended to bear neither more or less than the
simple construction of--'BILL STUMPS, HIS MARK'; and
that Mr. Stumps, being little in the habit of original composition,
and more accustomed to be guided by the sound of words than
by the strict rules of orthography, had omitted the concluding
'L' of his Christian name.
The Pickwick Club (as might have been expected from so
enlightened an institution) received this statement with the contempt
it deserved, expelled the presumptuous and ill-conditioned
Blotton from the society, and voted Mr. Pickwick a pair of gold
spectacles, in token of their confidence and approbation: in
return for which, Mr. Pickwick caused a portrait of himself to
be painted, and hung up in the club room.
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