"Mr. Phunky, Serjeant Snubbin," replied the attorney. "Phunky, Phunky," said the Serjeant, "I never heard the name before. He must be a very young man." "Yes, he is a very young man," replied the attorney. "He was only called the other day. Let me see--he has not been at the Bar eight years yet." "Ah, I thought not," said the Serjeant, in that sort of pitying tone in which ordinary folks would speak of a very helpless little child. "Mr. Mallard, send round to Mr.--Mr.--" "Phunky's--Holborn Court, Gray's Inn," interposed Perker. (Holborn Court, by-the-bye, is South Square now.) "Mr. Phunky, and say I should be glad if he'd step here a moment." Mr. Mallard departed to execute his commission, and Serjeant Snubbin relapsed into abstraction until Mr. Phunky himself was introduced. Although an infant barrister he was a full-grown man. He had a very nervous manner, and a painful hesitation in his speech; it did not appear to be a natural defect, but seemed rather the result of timidity, arising from the consciousness of being "kept down" by want of means, or interest, or connection, or impudence, as the case might be. He was overawed by the Serjeant, and profoundly courteous to the attorney. "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.