'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 co