As they struck the bargain, Mr. Pickwick surveyed him with a
painful interest. He was a tall, gaunt, cadaverous man, in an old
greatcoat and slippers, with sunken cheeks, and a restless, eager
eye. His lips were bloodless, and his bones sharp and thin. God
help him! the iron teeth of confinement and privation had been
slowly filing him down for twenty years.
'And where will you live meanwhile, Sir?' said Mr. Pickwick,
as he laid the amount of the first week's rent, in advance, on the
tottering table.
The man gathered up the money with a trembling hand, and
replied that he didn't know yet; he must go and see where he
could move his bed to.
'I am afraid, sir,' said Mr. Pickwick, laying his hand gently and
compassionately on his arm--'I am afraid you will have to live in
some noisy, crowded place. Now, pray, consider this room your
own when you want quiet, or when any of your friends come to
see you.'
'Friends!' interposed the man, in a voice which rattled in his
throat. 'if I lay dead at the bottom of the deepest mine in the
world; tight screwed down and soldered in my coffin; rotting in
the dark and filthy ditch that drags its slime along, beneath the
foundations of this prison; I could not be more forgotten or
unheeded than I am here.
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