er, which Mr. Pickwick did not
attempt to clear him from. When Mr. Pickwick fell through the ice,
Tupman, instead of rendering help, ran off to Manor Farm with the news of
the accident.

Then the whole party went down to Bath and, during their stay there, we
have not a word of Tupman. He came to see his friend in the Fleet--with
the others of course. But now for the remarkable thing. On Mr.
Pickwick's happy release and when every one was rejoining, Wardle invited
the whole party to a family dinner at the Osborne. There were Snodgrass,
Winkle, Perker even, but no Tupman! Winkle and his wife were at the
"George and Vulture." Why not send to Tupman as well. No one perhaps
thought of him--he had taken no interest in the late exciting adventures,
had not been of the least help to anybody--a selfish old bachelor. When
Mr. Pickwick had absented himself looking for his Dulwich house, it is
pointed out with marked emphasis that certain folk--"among whom was Mr.
Tupman"--maliciously suggested that he was busy looking for a wife!
Neither Winkle nor Snodgrass started this hypothesis, but Tupman. He,
however, was at Dulwich for Winkle's marriage, and had a seat on the
Pickwick coach. In later days, we learn that the Snodgrasses settled
themselves at Dingley Dell so as to be near the family--the Winkles, at
Dulwich, to be near Mr. Pickwick, both showing natural affection. The
selfish Tupman, thinking of nobody but himself, settled at Richmond where
he showed himself on the Terrace with a youthful and jaunty air, "trying
to attract the elderly single ladies of condition." All the others kept
in contact with their chief, asking him to be godfather, &c. But we have
not a word of Tupman. It is likely, with natures such as his, that he
never forgot the insulting remark about his corpulence. That is the way
with such vain creatures.

Boz, I believe, had none of these speculations positively before him, but
he was led by the logic of his story. He had to follow his characters
and their development; they did not follow him.

IV.--Grummer

This well drawn sketch of an ignorant, self-sufficient constable is
admirable. I have little doubt that one of the incidents in which he
figures was suggested to _Boz_ by a little adventure of Grimaldi's which
he found in the mass of papers submitted to him, and which he worked up
effectively. A stupid and malicious old constable, known as "Old Lucas,"
went to arrest the clown o