'The chairman said that he was quite sure that Mr Blotton did not mean what he had just said.'

Mr Blotton was very sorry to disagree with the chairman, but he was quite sure that he did.

The chairman felt that he really had to ask if Mr Blotton had used the words he had in a way that people would usually understand them.

Mr Blotton replied that he had not used the words in the way that most people would understand them, he had used them in a way that members of the Pickwick club would understand. Personally, he had a very high opinion of Mr Pickwick and thought that he was a very respectable person. He had just called him a hypocrite in a 'Pickwickian way'. (Everyone was happy about this, though no-one understood what it meant to call someone a hypocrite in a pickwickian way.)

Mr Pickwick replied that he was very pleased by the fair, honest, and complete explanation which he had received. He wanted everyone to understand that everything that he had said also had a Pickwickian meaning. (Cheers from his listeners.)

That is all that the club record tells us, because it stops here. But no doubt that having reached such a satisfactory ending, the discussion in the club stopped as well. What we have to tell you in the next part does not have an official record like the club records, but we have carefully collected all the evidence together to make an organized narrative which is almost certainly the truth.