seconds.

“Where’s an officer?” said Mr. Snodgrass.

“Put ’em under the pump,” suggested a hot-pieman.

“You shall smart for this,” gasped Mr. Pickwick.

“Informers!” shouted the crowd.

“Come on,” cried the cabman, who had been sparring without cessation the whole time.

The mob had hitherto been passive spectators of the scene, but[11] as the intelligence of the Pickwickians being informers was spread among them, they began to canvass with considerable vivacity the propriety of enforcing the heated pastry-vendor’s proposition; and there is no saying what acts of personal aggression they might have committed had not the affray been unexpectedly terminated by the interposition of a new comer.

[11]

“What’s the fun?” said a rather tall thin young man

“What’s the fun?” said a rather tall thin young man, in a green coat, emerging suddenly from the coach-yard.

[12]

[12]

“Informers!” shouted the crowd again.

“We are not,” roared Mr. Pickwick, in a tone which, to any dispassionate listener, carried conviction with it.

“Ain’t you, though,—ain’t you?” said the young man, appealing to Mr. Pickwick, and making his way through the crowd by the infallible process of elbowing the countenances of its component members.

That learned man in a few hurried words explained the real state of the case.

“Come along, then,” said he of the green coat, lugging Mr. Pickwick after him by main force, and talking the whole way. “Here, No. 924, take your fare, and take yourself 

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