he heard from him the better; whereupon the
middle-aged lady rushed in terror from the room, out of which Mr. Tupman dragged
Mr. Pickwick, leaving Mr. Peter Magnus to himself and meditation.
    If the middle-aged lady had mingled much with the busy world, or had
profited at all by the manners and customs of those who make the laws and set
the fashions, she would have known that this sort of ferocity is the most
harmless thing in nature; but as she had lived for the most part in the country,
and never read the parliamentary debates, she was little versed in these
particular refinements of civilised life. Accordingly, when she had gained her
bed-chamber, bolted herself in, and begun to meditate on the scene she had just
witnessed, the most terrific pictures of slaughter and destruction presented
themselves to her imagination; among which, a full-length portrait of Mr. Peter
Magnus borne home by four men, with the embellishment of a whole barrel-full of
bullets in his left side, was among the very least. The more the middle-aged
lady meditated, the more terrified she became; and at length she determined to
repair to the house of the principal magistrate of the town, and request him to
secure the persons of Mr. Pickwick and Mr. Tupman without delay.
    To this decision the middle-aged lady was impelled by a variety of
considerations, the chief of which, was the incontestable proof it would afford
of her devotion to Mr. Peter Magnus, and her anxiety for his safety. She was too
well acquainted with his jealous temperament to venture the slightest allusion
to the real cause of her agitation on beholding Mr. Pickwick; and she trusted to
her own influence and power of persuasion with the little man, to quell his
boisterous jealousy, supposing that Mr. Pickwick were removed, and no fresh
quarrel could arise. Filled with these reflections, the middle-aged lady arrayed
herself in her bonnet and shawl, and repaired to the Mayor's dwelling
straightway.
    Now George Nupkins, Esquire, the principal magistrate aforesaid, was as
grand a personage as the fastest walker would find out, between sunrise and
sunset, on the twenty-first of June, which being, according to the almanacs, the
longest day in the whole year, would naturally afford him the longest period for
his search. On this particular morning, Mr. Nupkins was in a state of the utmost
excitement and irritation, for there had been a rebellion in the town; all the
day-scholars at the largest day-school had conspired