Martin, and, twisting his hand in the neck-cloth of that
taciturn servitor, expressed an obliging intention of choking him
where he stood. This intention, with a promptitude often the
effect of desperation, he at once commenced carrying into
execution, with much vigour and surgical skill.
Mr. Martin, who was a man of few words and possessed but
little power of eloquence or persuasion, submitted to this
operation with a very calm and agreeable expression of countenance,
for some seconds; finding, however, that it threatened
speedily to lead to a result which would place it beyond his power
to claim any wages, board or otherwise, in all time to come, he
muttered an inarticulate remonstrance and felled Mr. Benjamin
Allen to the ground. As that gentleman had his hands entangled
in his cravat, he had no alternative but to follow him to the floor.
There they both lay struggling, when the shop door opened, and
the party was increased by the arrival of two most unexpected
visitors, to wit, Mr. Pickwick and Mr. Samuel Weller.
The impression at once produced on Mr. Weller's mind by
what he saw, was, that Mr. Martin was hired by the establishment
of Sawyer, late Nockemorf, to take strong medicine, or to go into
fits and be experimentalised upon, or to swallow poison now and
then with the view of testing the efficacy of some new antidotes,
or to do something or other to promote the great science of
medicine, and gratify the ardent spirit of inquiry burning in the
bosoms of its two young professors.
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