With that good advice Mr. Weller took Mr. Pickwick away from the lawyers’ office. But before we say anything about the trial itself let me introduce to you another solicitor not so well known as either Perker or Dodson and Fogg, but to my mind the most interesting as he certainly is the most humorous.
Mr. Pell had the honour of being the legal adviser of Mr. Weller, Senior. The latter gentleman always stoutly maintained that if Mr. Pickwick had had the services of Mr. Pell, and had established an alibi,
the great case of Bardell against Pickwick would have been decided otherwise. Mr. Pell practised in the Insolvency Court. He “was a fat, flabby, pale man, in a surtout which looked green one moment, and brown the next, with a velvet collar of the same chameleon tints. His forehead was narrow, his face wide, his head large, and his nose all on one side, as if Nature, indignant with the propensities she observed in him at his birth, had given it an angry tweak which it had never recovered. Being short-necked and asthmatic, however, he respired principally through this feature; so, perhaps, what it wanted in ornament, it made up in usefulness.”
Mr. Pell had successfully piloted Mr. Weller through the Insolvency Court, and his services were sought
to carry out the process by which Sam Weller became a voluntary prisoner in the Fleet at the suit of his obdurate parent.
“The late Lord Chancellor, gentlemen, was very fond of me,” said Mr. Pell.
“And wery creditable in him, too,” interposed Mr. Weller.
“Hear, hear,” assented Mr. Pell’s client. “Why shouldn’t he be?”
“Ah, why, indeed!” said a very red-faced man, who had said nothing yet, and who looked extremely unlikely to say anything more. “Why shouldn’t he?”
A murmur of assent ran through the company.
“I remember, gentlemen,” said Mr. Pell, “dining with him on one occasion. There was only us two, but everything as splendid as if twenty people had been expected—the great seal on a dumb-waiter at his right, and a man in a bag-wig and suit of armour guarding the mace with a drawn sword and silk stockings—which is perpetually done, gentlemen, night and day; when he said, ‘Pell,’ he said, ‘no false delicacy, Pell. You’re a man of talent; you can get anybody through the Insolvent Court, Pell; and your country should be proud of you.’ Those were his very words. ‘My lord,’ I said, ‘you flatter me.’ ‘Pell,’ he said, ‘if I do I’m damned.’”
“Did he say that?” inquired Mr. Weller.
“He did,” replied Pell.
“Vell, then,” said Mr. Weller, “I say Parliament ought to ha’ took it up; and if he’d been a poor man they would ha’ done it.”
“But, my dear friend,” argued Mr. Pell, “it was in confidence.”
“In what?” said Mr. Weller.
“In confidence.”
“Oh! wery good,” replied Mr. Weller, after a little reflection. “If he damned hisself in confidence, o’ course that was another thing.”
“Of course it was,” said Mr. Pell. “The distinction’s obvious, you will perceive.”
“Alters the case entirely,” said Mr. Weller. “Go on, sir.”
“No, I will not go on, sir,” said Mr. Pell, in a low and serious tone. “You have reminded me, sir, that this conversation was private—private and confidential, gentlemen. Gentlemen, I am a professional man. It may be that I am a good deal looked up to in my profession—it may be that I am not. Most people know. I say nothing. Observations have already been made in this room injurious to the reputation of my noble friend. You will excuse me, gentlemen; I was imprudent. I feel that I have no right to mention this matter without his concurrence. Thank you, sir; thank you.”
Thus delivering himself, Mr. Pell thrust his hands into his pockets, and, frowning grimly around, rattled three-halfpence with terrible determination.
We hear also of Mrs. Pell.
Mrs. Pell was a tall figure, a splendid woman, with a noble shape, and a nose, gentlemen, formed to command, gentlemen, and be majestic. She was very much attached to me—very much—highly connected, too. Her mother’s brother, gentlemen, failed for eight hundred pounds, as a law stationer.
So we have, ladies and gentlemen, these three types of this honourable profession. To my mind they have never been quite placed in their proper order. Perker has been universally admired and looked up to; Dodson and Fogg have been universally denounced; Mr. Pell has been suffered to remain unnoticed. Well,