%IIE PICKWICK CLUB. 199
" Mr. Dodson or Mr. Fog:g: at home, Sir?" inquired Mr. Pickvnck, gt ntly, advancing, hat in hand, towards the partition.
" Mr. Dodson ain't at home, and Mr. Fogg's particularly engaged," replied the voice ; and at the same time the head to which the voice belonged, with a pen behind its ear, looked over the partition, and at Mr. Pickwick.
It was a ragged head, the sandy hair of which, scrupulously parted on one side, and flattened down with pomatum, was twisted into little serai-circular tails round a flat face ornamented with a pair of small eyes, and garnished with a very dirty shirt-collar, and a rusty black stock.
" Mr. Dodson ain't at home, and Mr. Fogg's particularly engaged," said the man to whom the head belonged.
- When will Mr. Dodson be back, sir?" inquired Mr. Pickwick
" Can't say."
- Will it be long before Mr. Fogg is disengaged, sir ? "
" Don't know."
Here the man proceeded to mend his pen with great deliberation, while another clerk, who was mixing a Seidlitz powder, under cover of the lid of his desk, laughed approvingly.
♦< I think I'll wait," said Mr. Pickwick. There was no reply ; so Mr. Pickwick sat down unbidden, and listened to the loud ticking of the clock and the murmured conversation of the clerks.
- ' That was a game, wasn't it?" said one of the gentlemen, in a
brown coat and brass buttons, inky drabs, and bluchers, at the conclusion of some inaudible relation of his previous evening's adventures.
" Devilish good — devilish good," said the Seidlitz-powder man.
" Tom Cummins was in the chair," said the man with the brown coat ; '* It was half-past four when I got to Somers Town, and then I was so precious drunk, that I couldn't find the place where the latch-key went in, and was obliged to knock up the old 'ooman. I say, I wonder what old Fogg 'ud say, if he knew it. I should get the sack, I s'pose — eh ? "
At this humorous notion, all the clerks laughed in concert.
" There was such a game with Fogg here, this mornin*, said the man in the brown coat, " while Jack was up stairs sorting the papers, and you two were gone to the stamp-office. Fogg was down here opening the letters, when that chap as we issued the writ against at Camberwell, you know, came in — what's his name again ?"
" Ramsey," said the clerk who had spoken to Mr. Pickwick.
" Ah, Ramsey — a precious seedy-looking customer. * Well, sir,* says old Fogg, looking at him very fierce — you know his way — * well, sir, have you come to settle?' * Yes, I have, Sir,' said Ramsey, put- ting his hand in his pocket, and bringing out the money, ' the debt's two pound ten, and the costs three pourki five, and h^re it is, Sir;' and he sighed like bricks, as he lugged out the money, done up in a bit of blotting-paper. Old Fogg looked first at the money, and then at him, and then he coughed in his rum way, so that I knew something was coming, * You don't know there's a declaration filed, which increases the costs materially, I suppose?' said Fogg. ' You don't say that, Sir,'
