The Pickwick Papers
tied white neckerchief round his throat, showed that he had not found
leisure since he left the court to make any alteration in his dress;
while the slovenly style of the remainder of his costume warranted the
inference that his personal appearance would not have been very much
improved if he had. Books of practice, heaps of papers, and opened
letters, were scattered over the table, without any attempt at order or
arrangement; the furniture of the room was old and rickety; the doors of
the book-case were rotting in their hinges; the dust flew out from the
carpet in little clouds at every step; the blinds were yellow with age
and dirt; the state of everything in the room showed, with a clearness
not to be mistaken, that Mr. Serjeant Snubbin was far too much occupied
with his professional pursuits to take any great heed or regard of his
personal comforts.
The Serjeant was writing when his clients entered; he bowed abstractedly
when Mr. Pickwick was introduced by his solicitor; and then, motioning
them to a seat, put his pen carefully in the inkstand, nursed his left
leg, and waited to be spoken to.
‘Mr. Pickwick is the defendant in Bardell and Pickwick, Serjeant
Snubbin,’ said Perker.
‘I am retained in that, am I?’ said the Serjeant.
‘You are, Sir,’ replied Perker.
The Serjeant nodded his head, and waited for something else.
‘Mr. Pickwick was anxious to call upon you, Serjeant Snubbin,’ said
Perker, ‘to state to you, before you entered upon the case, that he
denies there being any ground or pretence whatever for the action
against him; and that unless he came into court with clean hands, and
without the most conscientious conviction that he was right in resisting
the plaintiff’s demand, he would not be there at all. I believe I state
your views correctly; do I not, my dear Sir?’ said the little man,
turning to Mr. Pickwick.
‘Quite so,’ replied that gentleman.
Mr. Serjeant Snubbin unfolded his glasses, raised them to his eyes; and,
after looking at Mr. Pickwick for a few seconds with great curiosity,
turned to Mr. Perker, and said, smiling slightly as he spoke--
‘Has Mr. Pickwick a strong case?’
The attorney shrugged his shoulders.
‘Do you propose calling witnesses?’
‘No.’
The smile on the Serjeant’s countenance became more defined; he rocked
his leg with increased violence; and, throwing himself back in his easy-
chair, coughed dubiously.
These tokens of the Serjeant’s presentiments on the subject, slight as
they were, were not lost on Mr. Pickwick. He settled the spectacles,
through which he had attentively regarded such demonstrations of the
barrister’s feelings as he had permitted himself to exhibit, more firmly
on his nose; and said with great energy, and in utter disregard of all
Mr. Perker’s admonitory winkings and frownings--
‘My wishing to wait upon you, for such a purpose as this, Sir, appears,
I have no doubt, to a gentleman who sees so much of these matters as you
must necessarily do, a very extraordinary circumstance.’
The Serjeant tried to look gravely at the fire, but the smile came back
again.
‘Gentlemen of your profession, Sir,’ continued Mr. Pickwick, ‘see the
worst side of human nature. All its disputes, all its ill-will and bad
blood, rise up before you. You know from your experience of juries (I
mean no disparagement to you, or them) how much depends upon effect; and
you are apt to attribute to others, a desire to use, for purposes of
deception and self-interest, the very instruments which you, in pure
honesty and honour of purpose, and with a laudable desire to do your
utmost for your client, know the temper and worth of so well, from
constantly employing them yourselves. I really believe that to this
circumstance may be attributed the vulgar but very general notion of
your being, as a body, suspicious, distrustful, and over-cautious.
Conscious as I am, sir, of the disadvantage of making such a declaration
to you, under such circumstances, I have come here, because I wish you
distinctly to understand, as my friend Mr. Perker has said, that I am
innocent of the falsehood laid to my charge; and although I am very well
aware of the inestimable value of your assistance, Sir, I must beg to
add, that unless you sincerely believe this, I would rather be deprived
of the aid of your talents than have the advantage of them.’
Long before the close of this address, which we are bound to say was of
a very prosy character for Mr. Pickwick, the Serjeant had relapsed into
a state of abstraction. After some minutes, however, during which he had
reassumed his pen, he appeared to be again aware of the presence of his
clients; raising his head from the paper, he said, rather snappishly--
‘Who is with me in this case?’
‘Mr. Phunky, Serjeant Snubbin,’ replied the attorney.
‘Phunky--Phunky,’ said the Serjeant, ‘I never heard the name before. He
must be a very young man.’
‘Yes, he is a very young man,’ replied the attorney. ‘He was only called
the other day. Let me see--he has not been at the Bar eight years yet.’
‘Ah, I thought not,’ said the Serjeant, in that sort of pitying tone in
which ordinary folks would speak of a very helpless little child. ‘Mr.
Mallard, send round to Mr.--Mr.--’
Phunky’s--Holborn Court, Gray’s Inn,’ interposed Perker. (Holborn Court,
by the bye, is South Square now.)--‘Mr. Phunky, and say I should be glad
if he’d step here, a moment.’
Mr. Mallard departed to execute his commission; and Serjeant Snubbin
relapsed into abstraction until Mr. Phunky himself was introduced.
Although an infant barrister, he was a full-grown man. He had a very
nervous manner, and a painful hesitation in his speech; it did not
appear to be a natural defect, but seemed rather the result of timidity,
arising from the consciousness of being ‘kept down’ by want of means, or
interest, or connection, or impudence, as the case might be. He was
overawed by the Serjeant, and profoundly courteous to the attorney.
‘I have not had the pleasure of seeing you before, Mr. Phunky,’ said
Serjeant Snubbin, with haughty condescension.
Mr. Phunky bowed. He _had _had the pleasure of seeing the Serjeant, and
of envying him too, with all a poor man’s envy, for eight years and a
quarter.
‘You are with me in this case, I understand?’ said the Serjeant.
If Mr. Phunky had been a rich man, he would have instantly sent for his
clerk to remind him; if he had been a wise one, he would have applied
his forefinger to his forehead, and endeavoured to recollect, whether,
in the multiplicity of his engagements, he had undertaken this one or
not; but as he was neither rich nor wise (in this sense, at all events)
he turned red, and bowed.
‘Have you read the papers, Mr. Phunky?’ inquired the Serjeant.
Here again, Mr. Phunky should have professed to have forgotten all about
the merits of the case; but as he had read such papers as had been laid
before him in the course of the action, and had thought of nothing else,
waking or sleeping, throughout the two months during which he had been
retained as Mr. Serjeant Snubbin’s junior, he turned a deeper red and
bowed again.
‘This is Mr. Pickwick,’ said the Serjeant, waving his pen in the
direction in which that gentleman was standing.
Mr. Phunky bowed to Mr. Pickwick, with a reverence which a first client
must ever awaken; and again inclined his head towards his leader.
‘Perhaps you will take Mr. Pickwick away,’ said the Serjeant, ‘and--and-
-and--hear anything Mr. Pickwick may wish to communicate. We shall have
a consultation, of course.’ With that hint that he had been interrupted
quite long enough, Mr. Serjeant Snubbin, who had been gradually growing
more and more abstracted, applied his glass to his eyes for an instant,
bowed slightly round, and was once more deeply immersed in the case
before him, which arose out of an interminable lawsuit, originating in
the act of an individual, deceased a century or so ago, who had stopped
up a pathway leading from some place which nobody ever came from, to
some other place which nobody ever went to.
Mr. Phunky would not hear of passing through any door until Mr. Pickwick
and his solicitor had passed through before him, so it was some time
before they got into the Square; and when they did reach it, they walked
up and down, and held a long conference, the result of which was, that
it was a very difficult matter to say how the verdict would go; that
nobody could presume to calculate on the issue of an action; that it was
very lucky they had prevented the other party from getting Serjeant
Snubbin; and other topics of doubt and consolation, common in such a
position of affairs.
Mr. Weller was then roused by his master from a sweet sleep of an hour’s
duration; and, bidding adieu to Lowten, they returned to the city.
CHAPTER XXXII. DESCRIBES, FAR MORE FULLY THAN THE COURT NEWSMAN EVER
DID, A BACHELOR’S PARTY, GIVEN BY MR. BOB SAWYER AT HIS LODGINGS IN THE
BOROUGH
There is a repose about Lant Street, in the Borough, which sheds a
gentle melancholy upon the soul. There are always a good many houses to
let in the street: it is a by-street too, and its dulness is soothing. A
house in Lant Street would not come within the denomination of a first-
rate residence, in the strict acceptation of the term; but it is a most
desirable spot nevertheless. If a man wished to abstract himself from
the world--to remove himself from within the reach of temptation--to
place himself beyond the possibility of any inducement to look out of
the window--we should recommend him by all means go to Lant Street.
In this happy retreat are colonised a few clear-starchers, a sprinkling
of journeymen bookbinders, one or two prison agents for the Insolvent
Court, several small housekeepers who are employed in the Docks, a
handful of mantua-makers, and a seasoning of jobbing tailors. The
majority of the inhabitants either direct their energies to the letting
of furnished apartments, or devote themselves to the healthful and
invigorating pursuit of mangling. The chief features in the still life
of the street are green shutters, lodging-bills, brass door-plates, and
bell-handles; the principal specimens of animated nature, the pot-boy,
the muffin youth, and the baked-potato man. The population is migratory,
usually disappearing on the verge of quarter-day, and generally by
night. His Majesty’s revenues are seldom collected in this happy valley;
the rents are dubious; and the water communication is very frequently
cut off.
Mr. Bob Sawyer embellished one side of the fire, in his first-floor
front, early on the evening for which he had invited Mr. Pickwick, and
Mr. Ben Allen the other. The preparations for the reception of visitors
appeared to be completed. The umbrellas in the passage had been heaped
into the little corner outside the back-parlour door; the bonnet and
shawl of the landlady’s servant had been removed from the bannisters;
there were not more than two pairs of pattens on the street-door mat;
and a kitchen candle, with a very long snuff, burned cheerfully on the
ledge of the staircase window. Mr. Bob Sawyer had himself purchased the
spirits at a wine vaults in High Street, and had returned home preceding
the bearer thereof, to preclude the possibility of their delivery at the
wrong house. The punch was ready-made in a red pan in the bedroom; a
little table, covered with a green baize cloth, had been borrowed from
the parlour, to play at cards on; and the glasses of the establishment,
together with those which had been borrowed for the occasion from the
public-house, were all drawn up in a tray, which was deposited on the
landing outside the door.
Notwithstanding the highly satisfactory nature of all these
arrangements, there was a cloud on the countenance of Mr. Bob Sawyer, as