Page:The Posthumous Papers of the Pickwick Club.djvu/400

324 324 POSTHUMOUS PAPERS OF

an opinion given yet, on any one of these cases; and an expedition fee paid with all of them." The clerk smiled as he said this, and inhaled the pinch of snuff with a zest which seemed to be compounded of a fondness for snuff and a relish for fees.

" Somethings like practice that," said Perker.

" Yes," said the barrister's clerk, producing his own box, and offering it with the greatest cordiality ; " and the best of it, is, that as nobody alive except myself can read the Serjeant's writing, they are obliged to wait for the opinions, when he has given them, till I have copied 'em, ha — ha — ha I "

'' Which makes good for we know who, besides the Serjeant, and draws a little more out of the clients, eh ? " said Perker ; " Ha, ha, ha !" At this the Serjeant's clerk laughed again — not a noisy boisterous laugh, but a silent, internal chuckle, which Mr. Pickwick disliked to hear. When a man bleeds inwardly, it is a dangerous thing for himself; but when he laughs inwardly, it bodes no good to other people.

your debt, have you ? " said Perker.
 * ' You haven't made me out that little list of the fees that I'm itt

" No, I have not," replied the clerk.

" I wish you would," said Perker. " Let me have them, and I'll send you a cheque. But I suppose you're too busy pocketing the ready money, to think of the debtors, eh ? ha, ha, ha !" This sally seemed to tickle the clerk amazingly, and he once more enjoyed a little quiet laugh to him.self.

" But, Mr. Mallard, my dear friend," said Perker, suddenly recovering his gravity, and drawing the great man's great man into a corner, by the lappel of his coat, " you must persuade the Serjeant to see me, and my client here."

" Come, come," said the clerk, *' that's not bad either. See the Serjeant ! come, that's too absurd." Notwithstanding the absurdity of the proposal, however, the clerk allowed himself to be gently drawn bevond the hearing* of Mr. Pickwick ; and after a short conversation conducted in whispers, walked softly down a little dark passage and disappeared into the legal luminary's sanctum, from whence he shortly returned on tiptoe, and informed Mr. Perker and Mr. Pickwick that the Serjeant had been prevailed upon, in violation of all his established rules and customs, to admit them at once.

Mr. Serjeant Snubbin was a lantern-faced sallow-complexioned man, of about five-and-forty, or — as the novels say — he might be fifty. H6 had that dull-looking boiled eye which is so often to be seen in the heads of people who have applied themselves during many years to a weary and laborious course of study ; and which would have been sufficient, without the additional eye-glass which dangled from a broad black riband round his neck, to warn a stranger that he was very near-sighted. His hair was thin and weak, which was partly attributable to his having never devoted much time to its arrangement, and partly to his having worn for five-and-twenty years the forensic wig which hung on a block beside him. The marks of hair-powder on his coat-collar, and the ill- washed and worse tied white neckerchief round his throat, showed that