Page:Fitzgerald - Pickwickian manners and customs (1897).djvu/52

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A MONUMENTAL PICKWICK.

even silver. So things went on prospering for a while. "Pickwick" was a magnificent success, and the blind man was never without a crowd round him of some fifteen to fifty persons. But the other blind readers found the demand for the sacred text vanishing; and people would unfeelingly interrupt them to inquire the way to the "Pickwick man." Eventually the police began to interfere, and required him to "move on;" "he was obstructing the pavement"—not, perhaps, he, but "Pickwick." He did move on to Hyde Park, but there were others there, performers young and up-to-date, and with full use of their eyes, who did the same thing with action and elocution. So he fairly gave the thing up, and returned to his Scriptures. This tale would have amused "Boz" himself.

Of a more miscellaneous kind are "The Pickwick Songster," "Sam Weller's Almanac," "Sam Weller's Song Book," "The Pickwick Pen," "Oh, what a boon and a blessing to men," etc.,—to say nothing of