? ? ? ? 'What says our aunt on the subject?' inquired Steerforth, glancing at the letter in my hand. 'Does she suggest anything?'
? ? ? ? 'Why, yes,' said I. 'She asks me, here, if I think I should like to be a proctor? What do you think of it?'
? ? ? ? 'Well, I don't know,' replied Steerforth, coolly. 'You may as well do that as anything else, I suppose?'
? ? ? ? I could not help laughing again, at his balancing all callings and professions so equally; and I told him so.
? ? ? ? 'What is a proctor, Steerforth?' said I.
? ? ? ? 'Why, he is a sort of monkish attorney,' replied Steerforth. 'He is, to some faded courts held in Doctors' Commons, - a lazy old nook near St. Paul's Churchyard - what solicitors are to the courts of law and equity. He is a functionary whose existence, in the natural course of things, would have terminated about two hundred years ago. I can tell you best what he is, by telling you what Doctors' Commons is.
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