{"id":"01KG6YH92DEQBY7BCXA5M9CJ5T","cid":"bafkreibsryuilj3p4ciamvndzhob5uelpt6koh7npyakf4b2trth26kxhu","type":"chunk","properties":{"end_line":799,"extracted_at":"2026-01-30T07:57:55.409Z","extracted_by":"structure-extraction-lambda","label":"Chunk 4","source_file":"01KG6YDDF6PTWG4P7JTS5THSTD","start_line":741,"text":"urged against gray hairs. Old age—even if it blot the page—is\r\nhonorable. With submission, sir, we _both_ are getting old.”\r\n\r\nThis appeal to my fellow-feeling was hardly to be resisted. At all\r\nevents, I saw that go he would not. So, I made up my mind to let him\r\nstay, resolving, nevertheless, to see to it that, during the afternoon,\r\nhe had to do with my less important papers.\r\n\r\nNippers, the second on my list, was a whiskered, sallow, and, upon the\r\nwhole, rather piratical-looking young man, of about five and twenty. I\r\nalways deemed him the victim of two evil powers—ambition and\r\nindigestion. The ambition was evinced by a certain impatience of the\r\nduties of a mere copyist, an unwarrantable usurpation of strictly\r\nprofessional affairs, such as the original drawing up of legal\r\ndocuments. The indigestion seemed betokened in an occasional nervous\r\ntestiness and grinning irritability, causing the teeth to audibly grind\r\ntogether over mistakes committed in copying; unnecessary maledictions,\r\nhissed, rather than spoken, in the heat of business; and especially by\r\na continual discontent with the height of the table where he worked.\r\nThough of a very ingenious mechanical turn, Nippers could never get\r\nthis table to suit him. He put chips under it, blocks of various sorts,\r\nbits of pasteboard, and at last went so far as to attempt an exquisite\r\nadjustment, by final pieces of folded blotting-paper. But no invention\r\nwould answer. If, for the sake of easing his back, he brought the table\r\nlid at a sharp angle well up towards his chin, and wrote, there like a\r\nman using the steep roof of a Dutch house for his desk, then he\r\ndeclared that it stopped the circulation in his arms. If now he lowered\r\nthe table to his waistbands, and stooped over it in writing, then there\r\nwas a sore aching in his back. In short, the truth of the matter was,\r\nNippers knew not what he wanted. Or, if he wanted anything, it was to\r\nbe rid of a scrivener’s table altogether. Among the manifestations of\r\nhis diseased ambition was a fondness he had for receiving visits from\r\ncertain ambiguous-looking fellows in seedy coats, whom he called his\r\nclients. Indeed, I was aware that not only was he, at times,\r\nconsiderable of a ward-politician, but he occasionally did a little\r\nbusiness at the Justices’ courts, and was not unknown on the steps of\r\nthe Tombs. I have good reason to believe, however, that one individual\r\nwho called upon him at my chambers, and who, with a grand air, he\r\ninsisted was his client, was no other than a dun, and the alleged\r\ntitle-deed, a bill. But, with all his failings, and the annoyances he\r\ncaused me, Nippers, like his compatriot Turkey, was a very useful man\r\nto me; wrote a neat, swift hand; and, when he chose, was not deficient\r\nin a gentlemanly sort of deportment. Added to this, he always dressed\r\nin a gentlemanly sort of way; and so, incidentally, reflected credit\r\nupon my chambers. Whereas, with respect to Turkey, I had much ado to\r\nkeep him from being a reproach to me. His clothes were apt to look\r\noily, and smell of eating-houses. He wore his pantaloons very loose and\r\nbaggy in summer. His coats were execrable; his hat not to be handled.\r\nBut while the hat was a thing of indifference to me, inasmuch as his\r\nnatural civility and deference, as a dependent Englishman, always led\r\nhim to doff it the moment he entered the room, yet his coat was another\r\nmatter. Concerning his coats, I reasoned with him; but with no effect.\r\nThe truth was, I suppose, that a man with so small an income could not\r\nafford to sport such a lustrous face and a lustrous coat at one and the\r\nsame time. As Nippers once observed, Turkey’s money went chiefly for\r\nred ink. One winter day, I presented Turkey with a highly\r\nrespectable-looking coat of my own—a padded gray coat, of a most\r\ncomfortable warmth, and which buttoned straight up from the knee to the\r\nneck. I thought Turkey would appreciate the favor, and abate his\r","title":"Chunk 4"},"relationships":[{"peer":"01KG6YGB7ZQ9TDECCV6B9DR6PT","peer_type":"chapter","predicate":"in"},{"peer":"01KG6YDDF6PTWG4P7JTS5THSTD","peer_type":"file","predicate":"extractedFrom"},{"peer":"01KG6YCG626JN4FCG8QK17CQCF","peer_type":"collection","predicate":"collection"},{"peer":"01KG6YH92D8AHGCVRE4P7NCXZ6","peer_type":"chunk","predicate":"prev"},{"peer":"01KG6YH92D6AFNTERJEQ7RN9S9","peer_type":"chunk","predicate":"next"}],"ver":2,"created_at":"2026-01-30T07:57:56.173Z","ts":"2026-01-30T07:58:02.217Z","edited_by":{"method":"manual","user_id":"01KFF0H3YRP9ZSM033AM0QJ47H"}}