And in a fourth, and a fifth, and a sixth,
and a seventh, the noise, and the beer, and the tobacco smoke, and
the cards, all came over again in greater force than before.
In the galleries themselves, and more especially on the stair-
cases, there lingered a great number of people, who came there,
some because their rooms were empty and lonesome, others
because their rooms were full and hot; the greater part because
they were restless and uncomfortable, and not possessed of the
secret of exactly knowing what to do with themselves. There
were many classes of people here, from the labouring man in his
fustian jacket, to the broken-down spendthrift in his shawl
dressing-gown, most appropriately out at elbows; but there was
the same air about them all--a kind of listless, jail-bird, careless
swagger, a vagabondish who's-afraid sort of bearing, which is
wholly indescribable in words, but which any man can understand
in one moment if he wish, by setting foot in the nearest
debtors' prison, and looking at the very first group of people he
sees there, with the same interest as Mr. Pickwick did.
'It strikes me, Sam,' said Mr. Pickwick, leaning over the iron
rail at the stair-head-'it strikes me, Sam, that imprisonment for
debt is scarcely any punishment at all.
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