 and by dint of many
questions, the conversation with which our readers are already acquainted.
    The jury looked suspicious, and Mr. Serjeant Buzfuz smiled and sat down.
They looked positively awful when Serjeant Snubbin intimated that he should not
cross-examine the witness, for Mr. Pickwick wished it to be distinctly stated
that it was due to her to say, that her account was in substance correct.
    Mrs. Cluppins having once broken the ice, thought it a favourable
opportunity for entering into a short dissertation on her own domestic affairs;
so, she straightway proceeded to inform the court that she was the mother of
eight children at that present speaking, and that she entertained confident
expectations of presenting Mr. Cluppins with a ninth, somewhere about that day
six months. At this interesting point, the little judge interposed most
irascibly; and the effect of the interposition was, that both the worthy lady
and Mrs. Sanders were politely taken out of court, under the escort of Mr.
Jackson, without further parley.
    »Nathaniel Winkle!« said Mr. Skimpin.
    »Here!« replied a feeble voice. Mr. Winkle entered the witness box, and
having been duly sworn, bowed to the judge with considerable deference.
    »Don't look at me, sir,« said the judge, sharply, in acknowledgment of the
salute; »look at the jury.«
    Mr. Winkle obeyed the mandate, and looked at the place where he thought it
most probable the jury might be; for seeing anything in his then state of
intellectual complication was wholly out of the question.
    Mr. Winkle was then examined by Mr. Skimpin, who, being a promising young
man of two or three and forty, was of course anxious to confuse a witness who
was notoriously predisposed in favour of the other side, as much as he could.
    »Now, sir,« said Mr. Skimpin, »have the goodness to let his Lordship and the
jury know what your name is, will you?« and Mr. Skimpin inclined his head on one
side to listen with great sharpness to the answer, and glanced at the jury
meanwhile, as if to imply that he rather expected Mr. Winkle's natural taste for
perjury would induce him to give some name which did not belong to him.
    »Winkle,« replied the witness.
    »What's your Christian name, sir?« angrily inquired the little judge.
    »Nathaniel, sir.«
    »Daniel, - any other name?«
    »Nathaniel, sir - my Lord, I mean.«
    »Nathaniel Daniel
