“Look at them in another light⁠—their most commonplace and least romantic. What fine places of slow torture they are! Think of the needy man who has spent his all, beggared himself, and pinched his friends, to enter the profession, which is destined never to yield him a morsel of bread. The waiting⁠—the hope⁠—the disappointment⁠—the fear⁠—the misery⁠—the poverty⁠—the blight on his hopes, and end to his career⁠—the suicide perhaps, or the shabby, slipshod drunkard. Am I not right about them?” And the old man rubbed his hands, and leered as if in delight at having found another point of view in which to place his favourite subject.

Mr. Pickwick eyed the old man with great curiosity, and the remainder of the company smiled, and looked on in silence.

“Talk of your German universities,” said the little old man. “Pooh, pooh! there’s romance enough at home without going half a mile for it; only people never think of it.”