The man gathered up the money with a trembling hand, and replied that he didn't
knowe it 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
foundation of this prison; I could not be more forgotten or unheeded than I am here. I
am a dead man; dead to society, without the pity they bestow on those whose souls
have passed to judgment. Friends to see me My God I I have sunk, from the prime
of life info old age, in this place, and there is not one to raise his hand above my bed
when I lie dead upon it, and say, 'It is a blessing he is gone
The excitement, which had cast an unwonted light over the man's face, while he
spoke, subsided as he concluded; and pressing his withered hands together in a
hasty and disordered manner, he shuffled from the room.
"Rides rather rusty," said Mr. Roker, with a smile. "Ah they're like the elephants.
They feel it now and then, and it makes 'em wild
Illustratie.
The Elephant.
Als in chapter 44 Sam zijn intrek doet in de Fleet Prison wordt hij ingekwartierd bij een
schoenlapper;
He was a sallow man - all cobblers are; and had a strong bristly beard - all
cobblers have. His face was a queer, good-tempered, crooked-featured piece of
workmanship, ornamented with a couple of eyes that must have worn a very joyous
expression at one time, for they sparkled yet. The man was sixty, by years, and
Heaven knows how old by imprisonment, so that his having any look approaching to
us'zoological" simile expressed by Mr.'Roker, an uncommon one for
the knowledge of a turnkey, is explained by the execution of Chunee, the
elephant in the Exeter Change Menagerie, which went must" and was
shot in 1825, which would be fresh in Mr. Roker's mind.
