Under the badgering of
Mr. Skimpin's irritating examination, as to whether he was or was not
a particular friend of Mr. Pickwick the defendant, the usually placable
Pickwickian's patience upon this occasion appeared gradually and at last
utterly to forsake him. "I have known Mr. Pickwick now, as well as I can
recollect at this moment, nearly----"

"Pray, Mr. Winkle, do not evade the question. Are you or are you not
a particular friend of the defendant's?" "I was just about to say----"
"Will you, or will you not, answer my question, sir?" "Why, God bless my
soul, I was just about to say that------" Whereupon the Court, otherwise
Mr. Justice Stareleigh, blinking faster than ever, blurted out severely,
"If you don't answer the question you'll be committed to prison, sir!"
And then, but not till then, Mr. Winkle was sufficiently restored to
equanimity to admit at last, meekly, "Yes, he was!"

In the Reading of the Trial the first droll touch was the
well-remembered reference to the gentlemen in wigs, in the barristers'
seats, presenting as a body "all that pleasing variety of nose and
whisker for which the bar of England is so justly celebrated." Even the
allusion to those among their number who carried a brief "scratching
their noses with it to impress the fact more strongly on the observation
of the spectators," and the other allusion to those who hadn't a brief,
carrying instead red-labelled octavos with "that under-done-pie-crust
cover, technically known as law calf," was each, in turn, welcomed with
a flutter of amusement. Every point, however minute, told, and told
eifectively. More eifectively than if each was heard for the first
time, because all were thoroughly known, and, therefore, thoroughly well
appreciated. The opening address of Serjeant Buzfuz every one naturally
enough regarded as one of the most mirth-moving portions of the whole
representation. In the very exordium of it there was something eminently
absurd in the Serjeant's extraordinarily precise, almost mincing
pronunciation. As where he said, that "never in the whole course of his
professional experience--never from the first moment of his applying
himself to the study and practice of the law--had he approached a case
with such a heavy sense of respon-see-bee-lee-ty imposed upon him--a
respon-see-bee-lee-ty he could never have supported were he not," and so
forth. Again, a wonderfully ridiculous effect was imparted by the Reader
to his mere contrast