 »a rig,« and the other his conviction that it
was »a go.« Having recorded their feelings in these very intelligible terms,
they looked at Mr. Pickwick and each other in awkward silence.
    »It's an aggravating thing, just as we got the beds so snug,« said the
chaplain, looking at three dirty mattresses, each rolled up in a blanket: which
occupied one corner of the room during the day, and formed a kind of slab, on
which were placed an old cracked basin, ewer, and soap-dish, of common yellow
earthenware, with a blue flower: »Very aggravating.«
    Mr. Martin expressed the same opinion in rather stronger terms; Mr. Simpson,
after having let a variety of expletive adjectives loose upon society without
any substantive to accompany them, tucked up his sleeves, and began to wash the
greens for dinner.
    While this was going on, Mr. Pickwick had been eyeing the room, which was
filthily dirty, and smelt intolerably close. There was no vestige of either
carpet, curtain, or blind. There was not even a closet in it. Unquestionably
there were but few things to put away, if there had been one; but, however few
in number, or small in individual amount, still, remnants of loaves and pieces
of cheese, and damp towels, and scrags of meat, and articles of wearing apparel,
and mutilated crockery, and bellows without nozzles, and toasting-forks without
prongs, do present somewhat of an uncomfortable appearance when they are
scattered about the floor of a small apartment, which is the common sitting and
sleeping room of three idle men.
    »I suppose this can be managed somehow,« said the butcher, after a pretty
long silence. »What will you take to go out?«
    »I beg your pardon,« replied Mr. Pickwick. »What did you say? I hardly
understand you.«
    »What will you take to be paid out?« said the butcher. »The regular chummage
is two-and-six. Will you take three bob?«
    »- And a bender,« suggested the clerical gentleman.
    »Well, I don't mind that; it's only twopence a-piece more,« said Mr. Martin.
    »What do you say, now? We'll pay you out for three-and-sixpence a week.
Come!«
    »And stand a gallon of beer down,« chimed in Mr. Simpson. »There!«
    »And drink it on the spot
