Alfred Jingle (original) (raw)

Alfred Jingle is a fictional character who appears in the 1837 novel The Pickwick Papers by Charles Dickens. He is a strolling actor and an engaging charlatan and trickster noted for his bizarre anecdotes and distinctive mangling of English syntax. He first appears in chapter two of the novel and accompanies the Pickwickians on their first coach journey. As they leave the Golden Cross Inn at Charing Cross, Jingle holds forth in characteristic mode on the dangers of decapitation as illustrated by low archways and the example of King Charles I, beheaded at nearby Whitehall Palace: