Pickwick. 'I refuse to pay some
damages, and am here in consequence.'
'Ah,' said Mr. Smangle, 'paper has been my ruin.'
'A stationer, I presume, Sir?' said Mr. Pickwick innocently.
'Stationer! No, no; confound and curse me! Not so low as that.
No trade. When I say paper, I mean bills.'
'Oh, you use the word in that sense. I see,' said Mr. Pickwick.
'Damme! A gentleman must expect reverses,' said Smangle.
'What of that? Here am I in the Fleet Prison. Well; good. What
then? I'm none the worse for that, am I?'
'Not a bit,' replied Mr. Mivins. And he was quite right; for, so
far from Mr. Smangle being any the worse for it, he was something
the better, inasmuch as to qualify himself for the place, he
had attained gratuitous possession of certain articles of jewellery,
which, long before that, had found their way to the pawnbroker's.
'Well; but come,' said Mr. Smangle; 'this is dry work. Let's
rinse our mouths with a drop of burnt sherry; the last-comer shall
stand it, Mivins shall fetch it, and I'll help to drink it. That's a
fair and gentlemanlike division of labour, anyhow. Curse me!'
Unwilling to hazard another quarrel, Mr.
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