, Charley, show the
gentleman in to Mr. Lowten."

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

Well, you know, respectable solicitors (clerks) don't sing comic songs at
public houses nowadays, but that is how Mr. Pickwick found Mr. Lowten.

"Would you like to join us?" said Mr. Lowten, when at length he had
finished his comic song and been introduced to Mr. Pickwick. And I am
very glad that Mr. Pickwick did join them, as he heard something of
the old Inns from old Jack Bamber.

"I have been to-night, gentlemen," said Mr. Pickwick, hoping to start
a subject which all the company could take a part in discussing--"I
have been to-night in a place which you all know very well, doubtless,
but which I have not been in for some years, and know very little of;
I mean Gray's Inn, gentlemen. Curious little nooks in a great place,
like London, these old Inns are."

"By Jove!" said the chairman, whispering across the table to Mr.
Pickwick, "you have hit upon something that one of us, at least, would
talk upon for ever. You'll draw old Jack Bamber out; he was never
heard to talk about anything else but the Inns, and he has lived alone
in them till he's half crazy."

"Aha!" said the old man, a brief description of whose manner and
appearance concluded the last chapter, "aha! who was talking about the
Inns?"

"I was, sir," replied Mr. Pickwick; "I was observing what singular old
places they are."

"_You_!" said the old man, contemptuously. "What do _you_ know of the
time when young men shut themselves up in those lonely rooms, and read
and read, hour after hour, and night after night, till their reason
wandered beneath their midnight studies; till their mental powers were
exhausted: till morning's light brought no freshness or health to
them; and they sank beneath the unnatural devotion of their youthful
energies to their dry old books? Coming down to a later time, and a
very different day, what do _you_ know of the gradual sinking beneath
consumption, or the quick wasting of fever--the grand results of
'life' and dissipation--which men have undergone in these same rooms?
How many vain pleaders for mercy, do you think, have turned away heart-
sick from the lawyer's office, to find a rest