Which is all about the Law, and sundry¹ Great Authorities learned therein

Scattered² about, in various holes and corners of the Temple, are certain dark and dirty chambers³, in and out of which, all the morning in vacation, and half the evening too in term time, there may be seen constantly hurrying with bundles of papers under their arms, and protruding⁴ from their pockets, an almost uninterrupted succession of lawyers’ clerks. There are several grades of lawyers’ clerks. There is the articled clerk, who has paid a premium⁵, and is an attorney in perspective, who runs a tailor’s bill, receives invitations to parties, knows a family in Gower Street, and another in Tavistock Square; who goes out of town every long vacation to see his father, who keeps live horses innumerable; and who is, in short, the very aristocrat⁶ of clerks. There is the salaried clerk — out of door, or in door, as the case may be — who devotes the major part of his thirty shillings a week to his Personal pleasure and adornments, repairs half-price to the Adelphi Theatre at least three times a week, dissipates majestically⁷ at the cider cellars afterwards, and is a dirty caricature of the fashion which expired six months ago. There is the middle-aged⁸ copying clerk, with a large family, who is always shabby, and often drunk. And there are the office lads in their first surtouts, who feel a befitting contempt for boys at day-schools, club as they go home at night, for saveloys and porter, and think there’s nothing like ‘life.’ There are varieties of the genus, too numerous to recapitulate⁹, but however numerous they may be, they are all to be seen, at certain regulated business hours, hurrying to and from the places we have just mentioned.

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