“An abstruse subject, I should conceive,” said Mr. Pickwick.

“Very, Sir,” responded Pott, looking intensely sage. “He crammed for it, to use a technical but expressive term; he read up for the subject, at my desire, in the ‘Encyclopaedia Britannica.’ ”

“Indeed!” said Mr. Pickwick; “I was not aware that that valuable work contained any information respecting Chinese metaphysics.”

“He read, Sir,” rejoined Pott, laying his hand on Mr. Pickwick’s knee, and looking round with a smile of intellectual superiority⁠—“he read for metaphysics under the letter M, and for China under the letter C, and combined his information, Sir!”