“I’ve been in the law, now, sir, about three years.”

“Must have been as good as born in it!” said Mr. Boffin, with admiration. “Do you like it?”

“I don’t mind it much,” returned Young Blight, heaving a sigh, as if its bitterness were past.

“What wages do you get?”

“Half what I could wish,” replied young Blight.

“What’s the whole that you could wish?”

“Fifteen shillings a week,” said the boy.

“About how long might it take you now, at a average rate of going, to be a Judge?” asked Mr. Boffin, after surveying his small stature in silence.

The boy answered that he had not yet quite worked out that little calculation.