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Pickwick Bicycle Club Magazine. Volume 10 No.3 October 2013
Y ou, dear readers and brother Pickwickians, are no doubt authorities on the

Pickwick Papers which you read avidly as you pedal your static bicycles in the gym, or
your home rollers.(You do have such things, don’t you?)
It will therefore be of great interest to you to attempt the following examination paper. Answers
will be applauded in the next issue.

IN 1857 C.S. Calverley, a brilliant Cambridge scholar and wit, set an Examination Paper on the
Pickwick Papers. This is itself so brilliant and witty that it deserves to be immortalized. The two
successful 'candidates' in this examination were Sir Walter Besant and Professor Skeat, when
both were young men. Could you answer any of these questions?

AN EXAMINATION PAPER

‘THE POSTHUMOUS PAPERS OF THE PICKWICK CLUB’

Cambridge 1857.
1. Mention any occasions on which it is specified that the Fat Boy was not asleep; and that
(a) Mr. Pickwick and (b) Mr. Weller, senr., ran. Deduce from expressions used on one occasion Mr.
Pickwick's maximum of speed.
2. Translate into coherent English, adding a note wherever a word, a construction, or an
allusion, requires it:
'Go on, Jemmy—like black-eyed Susan—all in the Downs'— ' Smart chap that cabman—handled
his fives well—but if I 'd been your friend in the green jemmy—punch his head—pig's whisper
—pieman, too’
Elucidate the expression, ' the Spanish traveler', and the ' narcotic bedstead'.
3. Who were Mr. Staple, Goodwin, Mr. Brooks, Villain, Mrs. Bunkin, ' old Nobs', ' cast-iron head', ' young
Bantam' ?
4. What operation was performed on Tom Smart's chair? Who little thinks that in which pocket,
of what garment, in where, he has left what, entreating him to return to whom, with how many
what, and all how big?
5. Give, approximately, the height of Mr. Dubbley; and, accurately, the Christian names of Mr.
Grummer, Mrs. Raddle, and the Fat Boy; also the surname of the Zephyr.
6. ' Mr. Weller’s knowledge of London was extensive and peculiar.’ Illustrate this by a reference to
the facts.