But to know the Inns as Dickens knew them, let us accompany Mr. Pickwick to the Magpie and Stump in search of Mr. Lowten, Mr. Perker's clerk. "Is Mr. Lowten here, ma'am?" inquired Mr. Pickwick. "Yes, he is, sir," replied the landlady. "Here, 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."