'I am delighted to hear it, sir,' said Mr. Pickwick.

'Hem,' coughed Mr. Smangle.

'Did you speak, sir?' said Mr. Pickwick.

'No, I did not, sir,' said Mr. Smangle.

All this was very genteel and pleasant; and, to make matters still more comfortable, Mr. Smangle assured Mr. Pickwick a great many more times that he entertained a very high respect for the feelings of a gentleman; which sentiment, indeed, did him infinite credit, as he could be in no wise supposed to understand them.

'Are you going through the court, sir?' inquired Mr. Smangle. 'Through the what?' said Mr. Pickwick.

'Through the court--Portugal Street--the Court for Relief of-- You know.'

'Oh, no,' replied Mr. Pickwick. 'No, I am not.'

'Going out, perhaps?' suggested Mr. Mivins.

'I fear not,' replied Mr. 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. Pickwick gladly assented to the proposition, and consigned the money to Mr. Mivins, who, as it was nearly eleven o'clock, lost no time in repairing to the coffee-room on his errand.

'I say,' whispered Smangle, the moment his friend had left the room; 'what did you give him?'

'Half a sovereign,' said Mr. Pickwick.

'He's a devilish pleasant gentlemanly dog,' said Mr. Smangle;-- 'infernal pleasant. I don't know anybody more so; but--' Here Mr. Smangle stopped short, and shook his head dubiously.

'You don't think there is any probability of his appropriating the money to his own use?' said Mr. Pickwick.

'Oh, no! Mind, I don't say that; I expressly say that he's a devilish gentlemanly fellow,' said Mr. Smangle. 'But I think, perhaps, if somebody went down, just to see that he didn't dip his beak into the jug by accident, or make some confounded mistake in losing the money as he came upstairs, it would be as well. Here, you sir, just run downstairs, and look after that gentleman, will you?'

This request was addressed to a little timid-looking, nervous man, whose appearance bespoke great poverty, and who had been crouching on his bedstead all this while, apparently stupefied by the novelty of his situation.

'You know where the coffee-room is,' said Smangle; 'just run down, and tell that gentleman you've come to help him up with the jug.