s of manner when, at one moment, in the bland and
melancholy accents of Serjeant Buzfuz, he referred to the late Mr.
Bardell as having "glided almost imperceptibly from the world to seek
elsewhere for that repose and peace which a custom-house can never
afford," adding, the next instant in his own voice, and with the most
cruelly matter-of-fact precision, "This was a pathetic description of
the decease of Mr. Bardell, who had been knocked on the head with
a quart-pot in a public-house cellar." The gravity of the Reader's
countenance at these moments, with, now and then, but very rarely, a
lurking twinkle in the eye, was of itself irresistibly provocative of
laughter. Even upon the Serjeant's mention of the written placard hung
up in the parlour window of Goswell Street, bearing this inscription,
"Apartments furnished for single gentlemen: inquire within," the
sustained seriousness with which he added, that there the forensic
orator paused while several gentlemen of the jury "took a note of the
document," one of that intelligent body inquiring, "There is no date to
that, is there, sir?" made fresh ripples of laughter spread from it as
inevitably as the concentric circles on water from the dropping of a
pebble. The crowning extravagances of this most Gargantuan of comic
orations were always of course the most eagerly welcomed, such, for
example, as the learned Serjeant's final allusion to Pickwick's
coming before the court that day with "his heartless tomato-sauce and
warming-pans," and the sonorous close of the impassioned peroration
with the plaintiff's appeal to "an enlightened, a high-minded, a
right-feeling, a conscientious, a dispassionate, a sympathising, a
contemplative jury of her civilised countrymen." It was after this,
however, that the true fun of the Reading began with the examination
and cross-examination of the different witnesses. These, as a matter of
course, were acted, not described.

Mrs. Cluppins first entered the box, with her feelings, so far as they
could be judged from her voice, evidently all but too many for her. Her
fluttered reply showed this at the very commencement, in answer to an
inquiry as to whether she remembered one particular morning in July
last, when Mrs. Bar-dell was dusting Pickwick's apartment. "Yes, my lord
and jury, I do." "Was that sitting-room the first-floor front?" "Yes, it
were, sir"--something in the manner of Mrs. Crupp when at her faintest.
The suspicious inquiry of th