seat in Mr. Lightwood’s room, sir, while I look over our Appointment Book?” Young Blight made a great show of fetching from his desk a long thin manuscript volume with a brown paper cover, and running his finger down the day’s appointments, murmuring, “ Mr. Aggs, Mr. Baggs, Mr. Caggs, Mr. Daggs, Mr. Faggs, Mr. Gaggs, Mr. Boffin. Yes, sir; quite right. You are a little before your time, sir. Mr. Lightwood will be in directly.”
“I’m not in a hurry,” said Mr. Boffin.
“Thank you, sir. I’ll take the opportunity, if you please, of entering your name in our Callers’ Book for the day.” Young Blight made another great show of changing the volume, taking up a pen, sucking it, dipping it, and running over previous entries before he wrote. As, “ Mr. Alley, Mr. Balley, Mr. Calley, Mr. Dalley, Mr. Falley, Mr. Galley, Mr. Halley, Mr. Lalley, Mr. Malley. And Mr. Boffin.”
“Strict system here; eh, my lad?” said Mr. Boffin, as he was booked.
“Yes, sir,” returned the boy. “I couldn’t get on without it.”
By which he probably meant that his mind would have been shattered to pieces without this fiction of an occupation. Wearing in his solitary confinement no fetters that he could polish, and being provided with no drinking-cup that he could carve, he had fallen on the device of ringing alphabetical changes into the two volumes in question, or of entering vast numbers of persons out of the Directory as transacting business with Mr. Lightwood. It was the more necessary for his spirits, because, being of a sensitive temperament, he was apt to consider it personally disgraceful to himself that his master had no clients.
“How long have you been in the law, now?” asked Mr. Boffin, with a pounce, in his usual inquisitive way.
“I’ve been in the law, now, sir, about three years.”