Charles Dickens

“ The Great White Horse is famous in the neighbourhood, in the same degree as a prize ox, or a county–paper–chronicled turnip, or unwieldy pig—for its enormous size. Never was such labyrinths of uncarpeted passages, such clusters of mouldy, ill–lighted rooms, such huge numbers of small dens for eating or sleeping in, beneath any one roof, as are collected together between the four walls of the Great White Horse at Ipswich.
It was at the door of this overgrown tavern that the London coach stopped, at the same hour every evening; and it was from this same London coach that Mr. ”

“ Mr. Peter Magnus was naturally of a very communicative disposition, and the brandy–and–water operated with wonderful effect in warming into life the deepest hidden secrets of his bosom. After sundry accounts of himself, his family, his connections, his friends, his jokes, his business, and his brothers (most talkative men have a great deal to say about their brothers) , Mr. Peter Magnus took a view of Mr. Pickwick through his coloured spectacles for several minutes, and then said, with an air of modesty—
‘And what do you think—what do you think, Mr. ”

“ Peter Magnus, ‘not a word more; it’s a painful subject. I see, I see. What’s the time, Mr. Pickwick?’ ‘Past twelve.’
‘Dear me, it’s time to go to bed. It will never do, sitting here. I shall be pale to–morrow, Mr. Pickwick.’
At the bare notion of such a calamity, Mr. Peter Magnus rang the bell for the chambermaid; and the striped bag, the red bag, the leathern hat–box, and the brown–paper parcel, having been conveyed to his bedroom, he retired in company with a japanned candlestick, to one side of the house, while Mr. ”

“ Weller, with impressive gravity. ‘She’s been gettin’ rayther in the Methodistical order lately, Sammy; and she is uncommon pious, to be sure. She’s too good a creetur for me, Sammy. I feel I don’t deserve her.’
‘Ah,’ said Mr. Samuel. ‘that’s wery self–denyin’ o’ you.’
‘Wery,’ replied his parent, with a sigh. ‘She’s got hold o’ some inwention for grown–up people being born again, Sammy—the new birth, I think they calls it. ”

“ I was just a–thinkin’ whether I hadn’t better begin too—‘specially as there was a wery nice lady a–sittin’ next me—ven in comes the tea, and your mother–in–law, as had been makin’ the kettle bile downstairs. At it they went, tooth and nail. Such a precious loud hymn, Sammy, while the tea was a brewing; such a grace, such eatin’ and drinkin’! I wish you could ha’ seen the shepherd walkin’ into the ham and muffins. I never see such a chap to eat and drink—never. The red–nosed man warn’t by no means the sort of person you’d like to grub by contract, but he was nothin’ to the shepherd. ”

“ By and by, there comes a great bustle downstairs, and a lanky chap with a red nose and a white neckcloth rushes up, and sings out, “Here’s the shepherd a–coming to wisit his faithful flock;” and in comes a fat chap in black, vith a great white face, a–smilin’ avay like clockwork. Such goin’s on, Sammy! “The kiss of peace,” says the shepherd; and then he kissed the women all round, and ven he’d done, the man vith the red nose began. ”

“ Pickwick.
‘What I mean, sir,’ said Sam, ‘is, that the poorer a place is, the greater call there seems to be for oysters. Look here, sir; here’s a oyster–stall to every half–dozen houses. The street’s lined vith ’em. Blessed if I don’t think that ven a man’s wery poor, he rushes out of his lodgings, and eats oysters in reg’lar desperation.’
‘To be sure he does,’ said Mr. Weller, senior ”

“ Is there any gentleman of the name of Tupman here, waiter?’
A corpulent man, with a fortnight’s napkin under his arm, and coeval stockings on his legs, slowly desisted from his occupation of staring down the street, on this question being put to him by Mr. ”