The Adventures of Roderick Random

Squire Gawky’s Indifference

Squire Gawky’s Indifference

Summary: The narrator encounters Squire Gawky, whose father had sent him to town for improvement in writing, dancing, fencing, and other fashionable accomplishments. The narrator informs Gawky of his desperate circumstances and requests a small loan. Gawky displays a handful of halfpence with a shilling or two, claiming this is all he has until quarter-day, having lost most of his allowance at billiards the previous night. He expresses neither sympathy for the narrator’s mishap nor desire to help, leaving the narrator deeply mortified at this indifference.

Challenging Gawky to a Duel

Challenging Gawky to a Duel

Summary: The narrator later discovers that Gawky was the one who betrayed him to his cousins and had also informed them of his forlorn situation, providing them great triumph. Resolving to call him to account, the narrator borrows a sword and writes a challenge requesting Gawky meet him at a certain time and place to answer for his perfidy with his blood. Gawky accepts the invitation. Despite experiencing considerable reluctance to the combat, manifested in cold sweats along the way, the narrator’s desire for revenge, shame of retracting, and hope of conquest enable him to appear at the field with good grace.

Gawky’s Cowardly Retreat

Gawky’s Cowardly Retreat

Summary: The narrator waits at the appointed place for an hour beyond the scheduled time, pleased to learn Gawky has fled. He goes directly to Gawky’s lodgings, discovering that Gawky departed for the country less than an hour after receiving the challenge. The narrator arranges for this story of cowardice to be published in the news, though he must sell his gold-laced hat for less than half-price to pay the expenses and sustain himself.

CAPÍTULO VII.

After being reduced to utter destitution, the narrator is summoned to a public-house where he meets Mr. Launcelot Crab, a corpulent, mulberry‑coloured surgeon who harbours a bitter grudge against his rival Potion and whose wives have clashed over precedence at a christening. Crab hires the penniless narrator despite the latter’s pride, placing him in a garret and exploiting his knowledge of pharmacy and surgery, while also using him to undermine Potion and to fill the vacancy left by his deceased apprentice. The narrator soon learns Crab’s contradictory temperament—reacting to the slightest shared pleasure with fury and to submission with even greater rage—so he adopts a bold, unyielding stance that ultimately wins Crab’s grudging respect and a modest glass of punch. When a housemaid declares herself pregnant and implicates the narrator, he redirects the scandal onto Crab, who, fearing exposure, schemes to abort the pregnancy; however, the maid’s refusal forces Crab to secure her silence by arranging a financial parting gift for the narrator. Now deemed essential enough for his skill yet eager to escape, the narrator accepts Crab’s counsel to “launch out into the world,” receives a modest loan, a letter of recommendation to a Member of Parliament, and sets out for London with a sparse wardrobe, a few medical texts and ten guineas, carrying the promise of a surgeon’s mate position aboard a king’s ship poised for the impending war with Spain.

Deserted in Want

After the fumes of resentment dissipated and the vanity of success faded, the narrator found himself completely abandoned and facing extreme poverty. Mankind avoided him as if he were a different species, outside Providence’s scheme of protection. His despair had left him nearly stupified when he received word that a gentleman wished to see him at a public-house.

Meeting Mr. Crab

The narrator repaired immediately to the public-house where he was introduced to Mr. Launcelot Crab, a surgeon in town. Crab was drinking “pop-in,” a concoction of brandy and small beer, with two other companions. Before explaining the reason for the summons, the narrator provides a description of this gentleman to illustrate what follows and account for his behavior.

A Description of the Surgeon

Mr. Crab was fifty years old, about five feet tall, with a substantial belly. His face resembled a full moon in complexion like a mulberry, and his nose—swollen to an enormous size and covered with carbuncles—resembled a powder-horn. His small gray eyes reflected light so obliquely that when looking directly at someone, one would think he was admiring their shoe buckle. He harbored an implacable grudge against fellow surgeon Potion, who, despite being younger, was better employed and had once performed a cure that disproved Crab’s prognosis. Their rivalry had been inflamed beyond reconciliation when their wives quarreled at a christening over precedence, progressing from insults to blows.