Page:The Posthumous Papers of the Pickwick Club.djvu/520

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between the greater part of those who had seen him, there was as much noise as could well be raised in an apartment of such confined dimensions.

Nor were the conversations of these gentlemen the only sounds that broke upon the ear. Standing on a box behind a wooden bar at another end of the room was a clerk in spectacles, who was " taking the affida- vits," large batches of which were from time to time carried into the private room by another clerk for the judge's signature. There were a large number of attorneys' clerks to be sworn, and it being a moral impossibility to swear them all at once, the struggles of these gentle- men to reach the clerk in spectacles, were like those of a crowd to get in at the pit door of a theatre when His Most Gracious Majesty honours it with his presence. Another functionary, from time to time exercised his lungs in calling over the names of those who had been sworn, for the purpose of restoring to them their affidavits after they had been signed by the judge, which gave rise to a few more scuffles ; and all these things going on at the same time, occasioned as much bustle as the most active and excitable person could desire to behold. There were yet another class of persons — those who were waiting to attend summonses their employers had taken out, which it was optional to the attorney on the opposite side to attend or not, and whose business it was from time to time to cry out the opposite attorney's name, to make certain that he was not in attendance without their knowledge.

For example. Leaning against the wall, close beside the seat Mr. Pickwick had taken, was an office lad of fourteen, with a tenor voice, and near him a common-law clerk with a bass one.

A clerk hurried in with a bundle of papers, and stared about him.

" Sniggle and Blink," cried the tenor.

" Porkin and Snob," growled the bass.


 * ' Stumpy and Deacon," said the new comer.

Nobody answered ; and the next man who came in, was hailed by the whole three, and he in his turn shouted for another firm, and then somebody else roared in a loud voice for another, and so forth.

All this time, the man in the spectacles was hard at work swearing the clerks ; the oath being invariably administered without any effort at punctuation, and usually in the following terms: —

writing you swear that the contents of this your affidavit are true so help you God a shilling you must get change I haven't got it."
 * Take the book in your right hand this is your name and hand-

" Well, Sam," said Mr. Pickwick. « I suppose they are getting the habeas corpus ready.''

It's wery unpleasant keepin' us vaitin' here. I'd ha' got half a dozen have-his-carcases ready, pack'd up and all, by this time."
 * ' Yes," said Sam " and I vish they'd bring out the have-his-carcase.

What sort of cumbrous and unmanageable machine, Sam Weller imagined a writ of habeas corpus to be does not appear, for Perker at that moment walked up, and took Mr. Pickwick away.