The Lawyers of Dickens-Land to the courts of law and equity. He is a functionary whose existence, in the natural course of things, would have terminated about two hundred years ago. I can tell you best what he is by telling you what Doctors' Commons is. It's a little out-of-the-way place where they administer what is called ecclesi astical law, and play all kinds of tricks with obsolete old monsters of acts of Parliament, which three-fourths of the world know nothing about, and the other fourth supposes to have been dug up, in a fossil state, in the days of the Edwards. It's a place that has an ancient monopoly in suits about people's wills and people's marriages, and dis putes about ships and boats." When David first meets Mr. Spenlow, the senior member of this firm of proctors, he has just hurried back to his office from court, in a black gown trimmed with white fur. He was a little light-haired gentleman, with un deniable boots and the stiffest of white cravats and shirt-collars. He was but toned up mighty trim and tight, and must have taken a great deal of pains with his whiskers, which were accurately curled. His gold watch-chain was so massive that a fancy came across David that he ought to have a sinewy gold arm, to draw it out with, like those which are put up over the gold-beaters' shops. He was got up with such care, and was so stiff, that he could hardly bend him self; being obliged, when he glanced at some papers on his desk, after sitting down in his chair, to move his whole body from the bottom of his spine, like Punch. Mr. Jorkins, the other member of fhe firm, was a large, mild, smooth-faced man of sixty, of a heavy temperament. He had originally been alone in the business, and now lived by himself in a house hear Montague square, which
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was fearfully in want of painting. He came to the office very late in the day, and went away very early. He never appeared to be consulted about any thing, and he had a dingy back-hole of
SIDNEY CARTON ON THE SCAFFOLD "It is far, far better thing that I do than I have ever done; it is far, far better rest that I go to than I have ever known."
his own upstairs, where no business was ever done, and where there was a yellow old cartridge-paper pad upon his desk, unsoiled by ink and reported to be twenty years of age. He took so much snuff that there was a tradition in the Commons that he lived princi pally on that stimulant, having little room in his system for any other article of diet. Jorkins' place in the business was to keep himself in the background and be constantly exhibited by name as the most obdurate and ruthless of men. If a clerk wanted his salary raised, "Mr. Jorkins would not listen to such a proposition." If a client
