Pickwick Abroad: or, The Tour in France — page 359: what you’re looking at

Machine-transcribed from the original scan — historical spelling and the odd misread are preserved.

298 Pickwick Abroad. convinced the Insolvents will be remanded for at least a twelvemonth. The most conspicuous figure in this interesting group is generally a very short individual, with a countenance proclaiming for its owner an leraelite extraction. He is blessed with a seedy suit of black, a dirty white neck-cloth, and such a hang-dog look, that he is quite enough to terrify even the Commissioners and barristers themselves, to say nothing of the opposing creditors, few of whom are calculated to be alarmed at trifles. This worthy individual is sole and undisputed proprietor of a couple of garrets with the use of a back-kitchen, in an obscure street leading out of the Blackfriars’ Road; and his usua lounges in the course of the day are the Parade in the Bench, and the Coffee-Gallery in the Fleet. Another remarkable figure in the above-named group is a gentleman about the middle height, somewhat slim in figure, also attired in rusty black, and wearing his double- breasted waistcoat most pruderitly and religiously buttoned up to his throat. This praiseworthy solicitor is adorned with black hair, and whiskers of the same; and his hands, for which he finds no use in gloves, are made to correspond with the rest of his appearance. A third individual is a fierce-looking personage, of Jewish extractiot (whatever may be his persuasion), with a face somewhat damaged by the small-pox, and with whiskers which are too large to be pro- fessional. Let us, however, observe, with that candour for which we are so remarkable, that this gentleman does wear a shirt. We are fond of recording instances where men, who are not expected to do so, really keep pace with their fellow-creatures in the progressive march of civilization and refinement. The strict probity and honour of the attorneys practising in this Court may be fully exemplified by the following statement. If their clients be tolerably well off, they usually manage to extract about five- and-twenty or thirty pounds from the pockets of each, whereas their regular charges cannot possibly amount to more than ten or twelve. And then these highly respectable gentlemen (the attorneys—not the clients) make an affidavit to something like the following purpose :-— “Stephen Suckemdry, gentleman, attorney for the said prisoner, maketh oath, and saith, that every sum of money charged in the within bill as paid, ‘and every matter charged therein’ as done, which would in the usual course of business be paid and done up to the time of swearing this affidavit, have been actually paid and done respectively ; and that all payments and matters in the said bill charged are essen- tially necessary to the discharge of the said prisoner; and farther that the sum of ten pounds, and no more, has been paid to or for the said attorney, on account of the said bill, to the time of swearing this amndavit. ‘¢ Sworn at the Office of the said Court in Lincoln’s Inn Fields, &c. “STEPHEN SUCKEMDRY.” If various little dinners, pints of sherry, ‘‘ goes of gin,” &c. &c., and the expenditure incurred thereby, together with the costs for GOnnCDOOkKS q) (c@