But the attorneys, who sit at a large bare table below the

commissioners, are, after all, the greatest curiosities. The professional

establishment of the more opulent of these gentlemen, consists of a

blue bag and a boy; generally a youth of the Jewish persuasion. They

have no fixed offices, their legal business being transacted in the

parlours of public-houses, or the yards of prisons, whither they repair

in crowds, and canvass for customers after the manner of omnibus

cads. They are of a greasy and mildewed appearance; and if they can

be said to have any vices at all, perhaps drinking and cheating are the

most conspicuous among them. Their residences are usually on the

outskirts of 'the Rules,' chiefly lying within a circle of one mile from

the obelisk in St. George's Fields. Their looks are not prepossessing,

and their manners are peculiar.

Mr Solomon Pell, one of this learned body, was a fat, flabby, pale man,

in a surtout which looked green one minute, and brown the next, with

a velvet collar of the same chameleon tints. His forehead was narrow,

his face wide, his head large, and his nose all on one side, as if

Nature, indignant with the propensities she observed in him in his

birth, had given it an angry tweak which it had never recovered. Being

short-necked and asthmatic, however, he respired principally through

this feature; so, perhaps, what it wanted in ornament, it made up in

usefulness.

I'm sure to bring him through it,' said Mr Pell.

Are you, though?' replied the person to whom the assurance was

pledged.

Certain sure,' replied Pell; 'but if he'd gone to any irregular

practitioner, mind you, I wouldn't have answered for the

consequences.'

'Ah!' said the other, with open mouth.

No, that I wouldn't,' said Mr Pell; and he pursed up his lips, frowned,

and shook his head mysteriously.

Now, the place where this discourse occurred was the public- house

just opposite to the Insolvent Court; and the person with whom it was

held was no other than the elder Mr Weller, who had come there, to

comfort and console a friend, whose petition to be discharged under

the act, was to be that day heard, and whose attorney he was at that

moment consulting.

And vere is George?' inquired the old gentleman.

The Pickwick Papers