Curious
little nooks in a great place, like London, these old inns are.'
'By Jove!' said the chairman, whispering across the table to
Mr. Pickwick, 'you have hit upon something that one of us, at
least, would talk upon for ever. You'll draw old Jack Bamber out;
he was never heard to talk about anything else but the inns, and
he has lived alone in them till he's half crazy.'
The individual to whom Lowten alluded, was a little, yellow,
high-shouldered man, whose countenance, from his habit of
stooping forward when silent, Mr. Pickwick had not observed
before. He wondered, though, when the old man raised his
shrivelled face, and bent his gray eye upon him, with a keen
inquiring look, that such remarkable features could have escaped
his attention for a moment. There was a fixed grim smile
perpetually on his countenance; he leaned his chin on a long, skinny
hand, with nails of extraordinary length; and as he inclined his
head to one side, and looked keenly out from beneath his ragged
gray eyebrows, there was a strange, wild slyness in his leer, quite
repulsive to behold.
This was the figure that now started forward, and burst into an
animated torrent of words.
Pages:
486
487
488
489
490
491
492
493
494
495
496
497
498
499
500
501
502
503
504
505
506
507
508
509
510