The text of the Pickwick Paper of 29th May 1997 reads:

Pickwick glanced up as a figure entered the main gate of Corpus Christi college, passed the Porter's Lodge and entered the court beyond. John Fynn, Head Porter, had noticed him almost before his foot entered college property.

"Now that is one man I have a lot of time for" - Fynn confided. "Perhaps he locked up more women in the Spinning House than he ought to have done, but then he is a clergyman (all of them are here). Some think he's strange because he's got this passion for beetles, but then a lot of people do these days. But Prof John Henslow did right for my old friend Thomas Borrett, even though he was only a servant.

"Now you know something about parliamentary elections and all the chicanery that can go on - and there's plenty of that here in Cambridge, what with bribing and treating, but then on top of that there's bullying by members of the University. Thomas Borrett was a college gyp for many years.

"Now a gyp does the cleaning, runs errands for those living on a particular staircase and ekes out his money by working as a waiter or even helping out as porter from time to time. People have a rum idea about them think they take too many tips, help themselves from students rooms and the like - well they do say the name "gyp" comes from the Greek word for vulture.

"But Thomas had a vote and he had strong political convictions. He always supported the Reform candidate even though all the rest of the servants felt they had to vote for the Tories because that's who the college supported. When people found out, they stopped employing Borrett for all the extra little jobs, like serving at their private dinners. He had a wife and family to support and found he could not cope. So he set up a business as a grocer and was then sacked from being a gyp because somebody said there was a rule that a college servant could not keep a shop - even though several others did.

"Still Thomas thought that he could make his shop pay, by supplying goods to the undergraduates - he knew what they liked, after all the years he worked for them. Now the way it works is that undergraduates buy things and the shop sends their bill to college tutors who authorise it to be paid. Only they wouldn't - and they refused to recommend him to their pupils.

"He had no option but to pack it all in and try and find a job where he wouldn't be persecuted for his political opinions. He's left Cambridge and now has a position in the London University. Now I think Henslow had a hand in that - and he certainly spoke up against the treatment they gave Tom. He made himself very unpopular with senior members of the University, why somebody even wrote "Henslow, common informer" on the walls of this college. I could never find out who did it, I never saw it done, but its there clear as day and I can't shift it. He's left Cambridge himself now - and I blame that Charles Darwin."

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