the leading counsel, which sometimes occurs, the
cross-examination of a witness, perchance an important one, is left to
some junior; but this excuse did not exist in this case. Serjeant
Snubbin was there in Court, because we hear that he winked at Mr. Phunky
to intimate to him that he had better sit down; and this, as we know,
from what I have told you just now, was the first brief that Mr. Phunky
had ever had. No, Serjeant Snubbin was over-matched throughout by
Serjeant Buzfuz, and Mr. Phunky was no match even for the scheming junior
on the other side, and Perker was no match for Dodson and Fogg. The law,
as we are told in one of George Eliot's books, is a kind of cock-fight,
in which it is the business of injured honesty to get a game bird with
the best pluck and the strongest spurs; and I venture to think that the
combined pluck of Buzfuz and Skimpin by far outweighed any of that
commodity possessed by Snubbin and Phunky. No wonder Mr. Pickwick lost
his case; but his case never recovered the effect of the speech which I
now propose to read to you.

Serjeant Buzfuz began by saying that never, in the whole course of his
professional experience--never, from the very first moment of his
applying himself to the study and practice of the law--had he
approached a case with feelings of such deep emotion, or with such a
heavy sense of the responsibility imposed upon him--a responsibility,
he would say, which he could never have supported, were he not buoyed
up and sustained by a conviction so strong, that it amounted to
positive certainty that the cause of truth and justice, or, in other
words, the cause of his much injured and most oppressed client, must
prevail with the high-minded and intelligent dozen of men whom he now
saw in that box before him.

Counsel usually begin in this way, because it puts the jury on the
very best terms with themselves, and makes them think what sharp
fellows they must be. A visible effect was produced immediately;
several jurymen beginning to take voluminous notes with the utmost
eagerness.

"You have heard from my learned friend, gentlemen," continued Serjeant
Buzfuz--well knowing that, from the learned friend alluded to, the
gentlemen of the jury had heard just nothing at all--"you have heard
from my learned friend, gentlemen, that this is an action for breach
of promise of marriage, in which the damages are laid at 1,500