Here Mr. Pell shook his head and paused; on which, the elder Mr. Weller, nudging his neighbour, as begging him to mark the attorney’s high connections, asked whether the duties in question produced any permanent ill effects on the constitution of his noble friend.

“I don’t think he ever quite recovered them,” replied Pell; “in fact I’m sure he never did. ‘Pell,’ he used to say to me many a time, ‘how the blazes you can stand the head-work you do, is a mystery to me.’⁠—‘Well,’ I used to answer, ‘ I hardly know how I do it, upon my life.’⁠—‘Pell,’ he’d add, sighing, and looking at me with a little envy⁠—friendly envy, you know, gentlemen, mere friendly envy; I never minded it⁠—‘Pell, you’re a wonder; a wonder.’ Ah! you’d have liked him very much if you had known him, gentlemen. Bring me three-penn’orth of rum, my dear.”