Sam. O quite enough to get, sir, as the soldier said, ven they ordered him three hundred and fifty lashes.

Judge. You must not tell us what the soldier or any other man said; it is not evidence.

Sam. Wery good, my lord.

Buz. Do you recollect anything particular happening on the morning when you were first engaged by the defendant? Eh! Mr. Weller?

Sam. Yes, I do, sir.

Buz. Have the goodness to tell the jury what it was.

Sam. I had a reg'lar new fit out o' clothes that ere morning, gen'l'men o' the jury, and that wur a wery partic❜lar and uncommon circumstance with me in those days.

Judge. You had better be careful, sir.

Sam. So Mr. Pickwick said at the time, my lord; and 1 wur wery careful o' that ere suit of clothes, wery careful indeed, my lord.

Buz. Do you mean to tell me, Mr. Weller—eh—do you mean to tell me, Mr. Weller, that you saw nothing of this fainting on the part of the plaintiff in the arms of the defendant, which you have heard described by the witnesses?

Sam. Certainly not. I was in the passage till they called me up, and then the old lady was not there.

Buz. Now attend, Mr. Weller. You were in the passage, and yet saw nothing of what was going forward. Have you a pair of eyes, Mr. Weller?

Sam. Yes, I have a pair of eyes, and that's just it. If they wur a pair of patent, double, million, magnifyin' gas microscopes o' hextra power, p'raps I might be able to see thro' a flight o' stairs and a deal door; but bein' only eyes, you see, my wision's limited.

Buz. Now, Mr. Weller, I'll ask you a question on another point, if you please.

Sam. If you please, sir.

Buz. Do you remember going up to Mrs. Bardell's house in November last?

Sam. O yes, wery well.

Buz. O you do remember that, Mr. Weller; well, I thought we should bring you to something at last.

Sam. I rayther thought that too, sir.

Buz. Well, I suppose you went up to have a talk about the trial-eh, Mr. Weller?

Sam. I went up to pay the rent, but we did get a talking about the trial.

Buz. O! you did get a talking about the trial. Now what passed about the trial? Will you have the goodness to tell us, Mr. Weller?

Sam. With all the pleasure in life, sir. After a few unimportant obserwations from the two wirtuous females, as has been examined here to-day, the ladies gets into a wery great state o' admiration at the honourable conduct of Mr. Dodson and Fogg, them two gen'l'men as is settin' near you

now.

Buz. The attorneys for the plaintiff,-well, they spoke in high praise of the honourable conduct of Messrs. Dodson and Fogg, the attorneys for the plaintiff, did they?

Sam. Yes; they said wot a wery gen'rous thing it wur o' them to have taken up the case on spec, and to charge nothin' at all for costs, unless they got 'em out o' Mr. Pickwick.

Buz. to Judge. You are quite right, my lord. It is perfectly useless attempting to get any evidence through the impenetrable stupidity of this witness. I will not trouble the court by asking any more questions. Stand down, sir (to Sam.)

Sam. Would any other gen'l'man like to ask me anything?

II.-MR. GREGSBURY AND NICHOLAS NICKLEBY.

(DICKENS.)

Mr. GREGSBURY is a Member of Parliament, in want of a secretary.

Nicholas. I BROUGHT this card from the General Agency Office, sir, wishing to offer myself as your secretary.

Mr. Gregsbury. You have no connection with any of those rascally newspapers, have you?

N. I have no connection, I am sorry to say, with anything at present.

Mr. G. Well. Now, what can you do?

N. I suppose that I can do what usually falls to the lot of other secretaries.

Mr. G. What's that?

N. A secretary's duties are rather difficult to define, perhaps. They include, I presume, correspondence. Mr. G. Good.

N. The arrangement of papers and documents.
Mr. G. Very good.

N. Occasionally, perhaps, the writing from your dictation; and possibly the copying of your speech for some public journal, when you have made one of more than usual importance.

Mr. G. Certainly. What else?

N. Really I am not able at this moment to recapitulate any other duty of a secretary, beyond the general one of making himself as agreeable and useful to his employer as he can, consistently with his own respectability, and without overstepping that line of duties which he undertakes to perform, and which the designation of his office is usually understood to imply.

Mr. G. This is all very well, Mr.-what is your name? N. Nickleby.

Mr. G. This is all very well, Mr. Nickleby, and very proper, so far as it goes-so far as it goes; but it doesn't go far enough. There are other duties, Mr. Nickleby, which a secretary to a parliamentary gentleman must never lose sight of. I should require to be crammed, sir.

N. I beg your pardon.

Mr. G. To be crammed, sir.

N. May I beg your pardon again, if I inquire what you mean?

Mr. G. My meaning, sir, is perfectly plain. My secretary would have to make himself master of the foreign policy of the world, as it is mirrored in the newspapers; to run his eye over all accounts of public meetings, all leading articles, and reports of the proceedings of public bodies; and to make notes of anything which it appeared to him might be made a point of, in any little speech upon the question of some petition lying on the table, or anything of that kind. Do you understand?

N. I think I do, sir.

Mr. G. Then it would be necessary for him to make himself acquainted from day to day with newspaper paragraphs on passing events-such as, " Mysterious disappearance, and supposed suicide of a pot-boy," or anything of that sort, upon which I might found a question to the Secretary of State for the Home Department. Then he would have to copy the question, and as much as I remembered of the answer (including a little compliment about my independence and good sense), and to send the MS. in a frank to the local paper, with, perhaps, half a dozen lines of leader to the effect that I was always to be found in my place in Parliament, and never shrunk from the discharge of my responsible and arduous duties, and so forth. You see?

N. (Bows.)

Mr. G. Besides which, I should expect him now and then to go through a few figures in the printed tables, and to pick out a few results, so that I might come out pretty well on timber-duty questions, and finance questions, and so on; and I should like him to get up a few little arguments about the disastrous effects of a return to cash payments and a metallic currency, with a touch now and then about the exportation of bullion, and the Emperor of Russia, and bank notes, and all that kind of thing, which it's only necessary to talk fluently about, because nobody understands 'em. Do you take me?

N. I think I understand.

Mr. G. With regard to such questions as are not political, and which one can't be expected to care a screw about, beyond the natural care of not allowing inferior people to be as well off as ourselves-else, where are our privileges?— I should wish my secretary to get together a few little flourishing speeches of a patriotic cast. For instance, if any preposterous bill were brought forward for giving poor grubbing wretches of authors a right to their own property, I should like to say that I for one would never consent to opposing an insurmountable bar to the diffusion of literature among the people-you understand?—that the creations of the pocket, being man's, might belong to one man or one family; but that the creations of the brain, being God's.

ought, as a matter of course, to belong to the people at large; and if I was pleasantly disposed, I should like to make a joke about posterity, and say that those who wrote for posterity should be content to be rewarded by the approbation of posterity. It might take with the House, and could never do me any harm, because posterity can't be expected to know anything about me, or my jokes either. Don't you see? N. I see that, sir.

Mr. G. You must always bear in mind, in such cases as this, where our interests are not affected, to put it very strong about the people, because it comes out very well at election time; and you could be as funny as you liked about the authors, because, I believe, the greater part of them live in lodgings, and are not voters. This is a hasty outline of the chief things you'd have to do, except waiting in the lobby every night, in case I forgot anything, and should want fresh cramming; and now and then, during great debates, sitting in the front row of the gallery, and saying to the people about, "You see that gentleman, with his hand to his face and his arm twisted round the pillar?— that's Mr. Gregsbury-the celebrated Mr. Gregsbury"—with any other little eulogium that might strike you at the moment. And for salary-and for salary, I don't mind saying at once, in round numbers, to prevent any dissatisfaction-though it's more than I have been accustomed to give-fifteen shillings a week, and find yourself. There. N. Fifteen shillings a week is not much.

Mr. G. Not much!-fifteen shillings a week not much, young man!-fifteen shillings a—

N. Pray do not suppose that I quarrel with the sum, for I am not ashamed to confess that whatever it may be in itself, to me it is a great deal. But the duties and responsibilities make the recompense small; and they are so very heavy that I fear to undertake them.

Mr. G. Do you decline to undertake them, sir?

N. I fear they are too great for my powers, however good my will may be.

Mr. G. That is as much as to say that you had rather not accept the place, and that you consider fifteen shillings a week too little (ringing bell). Do you decline it, sir?