Over all the legal neighbourhood there hangs, like some great veil of rust or gigantic cobweb, the idleness and pensiveness of the long vacation. Mr. Snagsby, law-stationer of Cook's Court, Cursitor Street, is sensible of the influence not only in his mind as a sympathetic and contemplative man, but also in his business as a law-stationer aforesaid. He has more leisure for musing in Staple Inn and in the Rolls Yard during the long vacation than at other seasons, and he says to the two 'prentices, what a thing it is in such hot weather to think that you live in an island with the sea a-rolling and a-bowling right round you.
Guster is busy in the little drawing-room on this present afternoon in the long vacation, when Mr. and Mrs. Snagsby have it in contemplation to receive company. The expected guests are rather select than numerous, being Mr. and Mrs. Chadband and no more. From Mr. Chadband's being much given to describe himself, both verbally and in writing, as a vessel, he is occasionally mistaken by strangers for a gentleman connected with navigation, but he is, as he expresses it, "in the ministry." Mr. Chadband is attached to no particular denomination and is considered by his persecutors to have nothing so very remarkable to say on the greatest of subjects as to render his volunteering, on his own account, at all incumbent on his conscience; but he has his followers, and Mrs. Snagsby is of the number. Mrs. Snagsby has but recently taken a passage upward by the vessel, Chadband; and her attention was attracted to that Bark A 1, when she was something flushed by the hot weather.
"My little woman," says Mr. Snagsby to the sparrows in Staple Inn, "likes to have her religion rather sharp, you see!"

Over all the legal neighbourhood there hangs, like some gigantic cobweb, the idleness and pensiveness of the long vacation. Mr. Snagsby, law-stationer, has more leisure for musing during the long vacation than at other seasons, and he says to the two apprentices, what a thing it is in such hot weather to think that you live in an island with the sea a-bowling right round you.
Guster is busy in the little drawing-room this afternoon, when Mr. and Mrs. Snagsby are to receive company. The expected guests are Mr. and Mrs. Chadband. From Mr. Chadband's being much given to describe himself as a vessel, he is occasionally mistaken by strangers for a sailor, but he is, he says, "in the ministry." Mr. Chadband is attached to no particular denomination and is considered by his persecutors to have nothing very remarkable to say; but he has his followers, and Mrs. Snagsby is one of them.
"My little woman," says Mr. Snagsby to the sparrows in Staple Inn, "likes to have her religion rather sharp, you see!"
