before
him.

'Is Mr. Lowten here, ma'am?' inquired Mr. Pickwick.

'Yes, he is, Sir,' replied the landlady. 'Here, Charley, show the
gentleman in to Mr. Lowten.'

'The gen'l'm'n can't go in just now,' said a shambling pot-boy, with a
red head, 'cos' Mr. Lowten's a-singin' a comic song, and he'll put him
out. He'll be done directly, Sir.'

The red-headed pot-boy had scarcely finished speaking, when a most
unanimous hammering of tables, and jingling of glasses, announced that
the song had that instant terminated; and Mr. Pickwick, after desiring
Sam to solace himself in the tap, suffered himself to be conducted into
the presence of Mr. Lowten.

At the announcement of 'A gentleman to speak to you, Sir,' a puffy-faced
young man, who filled the chair at the head of the table, looked with
some surprise in the direction from whence the voice proceeded; and the
surprise seemed to be by no means diminished, when his eyes rested on an
individual whom he had never seen before.

'I beg your pardon, Sir,' said Mr. Pickwick, 'and I am very sorry
to disturb the other gentlemen, too, but I come on very particular
business; and if you will suffer me to detain you at this end of the
room for five minutes, I shall be very much obliged to you.'

The puffy-faced young man rose, and drawing a chair close to Mr.
Pickwick in an obscure corner of the room, listened attentively to his
tale of woe.

'Ah,'he said, when Mr. Pickwick had concluded, 'Dodson and Fogg--sharp
practice theirs--capital men of business, Dodson and Fogg, sir.'

Mr. Pickwick admitted the sharp practice of Dodson and Fogg, and Lowten
resumed. 'Perker ain't in town, and he won't be, neither, before the end
of next week; but if you want the action defended, and will leave the
copy with me, I can do all that's needful till he comes back.'

'That's exactly what I came here for,' said Mr. Pickwick, handing over
the document. 'If anything particular occurs, you can write to me at the
post-office, Ipswich.'

'That's all right,' replied Mr. Perker's clerk; and then seeing Mr.
Pickwick's eye wandering curiously towards the table, he added, 'will
you join us, for half an hour or so? We are capital company here
to-night. There's Samkin and Green's managing-clerk, and Smithers and
Price's chancery, and Pimkin and Thomas's out o' doors--sings a capital
song, he does--and Jack Bamber, and ever so many more. You're come out
of the country, I suppose. Would you like to join us?'