 this quarter of a century in the churchyard of St. Andrew's,
Holborn, with the waggons and hackney-coaches roaring past him, all the day and
half the night, like one great dragon. If he ever steal forth when the dragon is
at rest, to air himself again in Cook's Court, until admonished to return by the
crowing of the sanguine cock in the cellar at the little dairy in Cursitor
Street, whose ideas of daylight it would be curious to ascertain, since he knows
from his personal observation next to nothing about it - if Peffer ever do
revisit the pale glimpes of Cook's Court, which no law-stationer in the trade
can positively deny, he comes invisibly, and no one is the worse or wiser.
    In his lifetime, and likewise in the period of Snagsby's time of seven long
years, there dwelt with Peffer, in the same law-stationering premises, a niece -
a short, shrewd niece, something too violently compressed about the waist, and
with a sharp nose like a sharp autumn evening, inclining to be frosty towards
the end. The Cook's-Courtiers had a rumour flying among them, that the mother of
this niece did, in her daughter's childhood, moved by too jealous a solicitude
that her figure should approach perfection, lace her up every morning with her
maternal foot against the bed-post for a stronger hold and purchase; and
further, that she exhibited internally pints of vinegar and lemon-juice: which
acids, they held, had mounted to the nose and temper of the patient. With
whichsoever of the many tongues of Rumour this frothy report originated, it
either never reached, or never influenced, the ears of young Snagsby; who,
having wooed and won its fair subject on his arrival at man's estate, entered
into two partnerships at once. So now, in Cook's Court, Cursitor Street, Mr.
Snagsby and the niece are one; and the niece still cherishes her figure - which,
however tastes may differ, is unquestionably so far precious, that there is
mighty little of it.
    Mr. and Mrs. Snagsby are not only one bone and one flesh, but, to the
neighbours' thinking, one voice too. That voice, appearing to proceed from Mrs.
Snagsby alone, is heard in Cook's Court very often. Mr. Snagsby, otherwise than
as he finds expression through these dulcet tones, is rarely heard. He is a
mild, bald, timid man, with a shining head, and a scrubby clump
