The scene is an inn. Pickwick and some young friends are dining when Editor Pott comes upon them. Some preliminary chatter of a delightful sort and Pott is convinced that Pickwick's young friends are waverers – they do not follow the blue. To set their opinion on solid foundations, he urges them to read a series of articles that appeared in his paper in the form of a review of Chinese metaphysics. “An abstruse subject,” says Pickwick. “Very,” says Pott, but my writer “crammed for it … he read up for the subject, at my desire, in the Encyclopaedia Britannica.” “I was not aware that this valuable work carried anything on Chinese metaphysics,” responds Pickwick. “He read, Sir,” rejoins Pott, looking round with a smile of intellectual superiority, “He read for metaphysics under the letter M and for China under the letter C, and combined his information, Sir.”