'Must have been as good as born in it!' said Mr Boffin, with admiration.
'Do you like it?'

'I don't mind it much,' returned Young Blight, heaving a sigh, as if its
bitterness were past.

'What wages do you get?'

'Half what I could wish,' replied young Blight.

'What's the whole that you could wish?'

'Fifteen shillings a week,' said the boy.

'About how long might it take you now, at a average rate of going, to be
a Judge?' asked Mr Boffin, after surveying his small stature in silence.

The boy answered that he had not yet quite worked out that little
calculation.

'I suppose there's nothing to prevent your going in for it?' said Mr
Boffin.

The boy virtually replied that as he had the honour to be a Briton who
never never never, there was nothing to prevent his going in for it. Yet
he seemed inclined to suspect that there might be something to prevent
his coming out with it.

'Would a couple of pound help you up at all?' asked Mr Boffin.