 very low ceiling and
old panelled walls; and so badly lighted, that although it was broad day
outside, great tallow candles were burning on the desks. At one end, was a door
leading to the judge's private apartment, round which were congregated a crowd
of attorneys and managing clerks, who were called in, in the order in which
their respective appointments stood upon the file. Every time this door was
opened to let a party out, the next party made a violent rush to get in; and, as
in addition to the numerous dialogues which passed between the gentlemen who
were waiting to see the judge, a variety of personal squabbles ensued between
the greater part of those who had seen him, there was as much noise as could
well be raised in an apartment of such confined dimensions.
    Nor were the conversations of these gentlemen the only sounds that broke
upon the ear. Standing on a box behind a wooden bar at another end of the room,
was a clerk in spectacles, who was taking the affidavits: large batches of which
were, from time to time, carried into the private room by another clerk for the
judge's signature. There were a large number of attorneys' clerks to be sworn,
and it being a moral impossibility to swear them all at once, the struggles of
these gentlemen to reach the clerk in spectacles, were like those of a crowd to
get in at the pit door of a theatre when Gracious Majesty honours it with its
presence. Another functionary, from time to time, exercised his lungs in calling
over the names of those who had been sworn, for the purpose of restoring to them
their affidavits after they had been signed by the judge: which gave rise to a
few more scuffles; and all these things going on at the same time, occasioned as
much bustle as the most active and excitable person could desire to behold.
There were yet another class of persons - those who were waiting to attend
summonses their employers had taken out, which it was optional to the attorney
on the opposite side to attend or not - and whose business it was, from time to
time, to cry out the opposite attorney's name, to make certain that he was not
in attendance without their knowledge.
    For example. Leaning against the wall, close beside the seat Mr. Pickwick
had taken, was an office-lad of fourteen, with a tenor voice; near him, a
common-law clerk with a bass one.
    A clerk hurried in with a bundle of papers, and stared about him.
    »Sniggle and Blink,
