 23. I corroborate Mr. Dick and choose a profession. When I awoke in the morning I thought very much of little Emily and her emotion last night after Martha had left. I felt as if I had come into the knowledge of those domestic weaknesses and tendernesses in a sacred confidence and that to disclose them even to steer-forth would be wrong. I had no gentler feeling towards anyone than towards the pretty creature who had been my playmate and whom I have always been persuaded and shall always be persuaded to my dying day I then devotedly loved. The repetition to any ears even to steer-forths of what she had been unable to repress when her heart lay open to me by an accident I felt would be a rough deed unworthy of myself, unworthy of the light of our pure childhood which I always saw encircling her head. I made a resolution therefore to keep it in my own breast and there it gave her image a new grace. While we were at breakfast a letter was delivered to me from my aunt as it contained matter on which I thought steer-forth could advise me as well as anyone and on which I knew I should be delighted to consult him I resolved to make it a subject of discussion on our journey home. For the present we had enough to do in taking leave of all our friends. Mr. Barkus was far from being the last among them in his regret at our departure and I believe would even have opened the box again and sacrificed another guinea if it would have kept us eight and forty hours in Yarmouth. Peggy and all her family were full of grief at our going. The whole house of Omer and Joram turned out to bid us good-bye and there were so many seafaring volunteers in attendance on steer-forth when our portmanteaus went to the coach that if we had had the baggage of a regiment with us we should hardly have wanted porters to carry it. In a word we departed to the regret and admiration of all concerned and left a great many people very sorry behind us. Do you stay long here, Littimer said I as he stood waiting to see the coach start. No sir he replied probably not very long sir. He can hardly say just now observed steer-forth carelessly he knows what he has to do and he'll do it. That I am sure he will said I. Littimer touched his head in acknowledgment of my good opinion and I felt about eight years old. He touched it once more wishing us a good journey and we left him standing on the pavement as respectable a mystery as any pyramid in Egypt. For some little time we held no conversation steer-forth being unusually silent and I being sufficiently engaged in wondering within myself when I should see the old places again and what new changes might happen to me or them in the meanwhile. At length steer-forth becoming gay and talkative in a moment as he could become anything he liked at any moment pulled me by the arm. Find a voice David what about that letter you were speaking of at breakfast. Oh said I taking it out of my pocket it's from my aunt. And what does she say requiring consideration. Why she reminds me steer-forth said I that I came out on this expedition to look about me and to think a little. Which of course you have done. Indeed I can't say I have particularly to tell you the truth I am afraid I have forgotten it. Well look about you now and make up for your negligence said steer-forth look to the right and you'll see a flat country with a good deal of marsh in it. Look to the left and you'll see the same look to the front and you'll find no difference look to the rear and there it is still. I laughed and replied that I saw no suitable profession in the whole prospect which was perhaps to be attributed to its flatness. What says our aunt on the subject inquired steer-forth 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 steer-forth Cooley 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 steer-forth said I. Why he is a sort of monkish attorney replied steer-forth he is to some faded courts held in doctor's commons a lazy old nook near St. Paul's church yard 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 doctor's commons is it's a little out of the way place where they administer what is called ecclesiastical law and play all kinds of tricks with obsolete old monsters of acts of parliament which three fourths of the world know nothing about and the other fourths supposed to have been dug up in a fossil state in the days of the Edwards it's a place that has an ancient monopoly in suits about people's wills and people's marriages and disputes among ships and boats nonsense steer-forth I exclaimed you don't mean to say that there's any affinity between nautical matters and ecclesiastical matters I don't indeed my dear boy he returned but I mean to say that they are managed and decided by the same set of people down in that same doctor's commons you should go there one day and find them blundering through half the nautical terms in young's dictionary apropos of the Nancy having run down the Sarah Jane or Mr. Pegaty and the Yarmouth boatman having put off in a gale of wind with an anchor and cable to the Nelson Indian men in distress and you should go there another day and find them deep in the evidence pro and con respecting a clergyman who has misbehaved himself and you shall find the judge in the nautical case the advocate in the clergyman's case are contrary wise they are like actors now a man's a judge and now he is not a judge now he's one thing now he's another now he's something else change and change about but it's always a very pleasant profitable little affair of private theatricals presented to an uncommonly select audience but advocates and proctors are not one in the same said I a little puzzled are they no returned steer-forth the advocates are civilians men who have taken a doctor's degree at college which is the first reason of my knowing anything about it the proctors employ the advocates both get very comfortable fees and all together they make a mighty snug little party on the whole I would recommend you to take to doctors Commons kindly David they plume themselves on their gentility there I can tell you if that's any satisfaction I made allowance for steer-forth lightweight way of treating the subject and considering it with reference to the state air of gravity and antiquity which I associated with that lazy old nook near st paul's churchyard did not feel indisposed towards my aunt's suggestion which she left to my free decision making no scruple of telling me that it had occurred to her on her lately visiting her own proctor and doctors Commons for the purpose of settling her will in my favor that's a laudable proceeding on the part of our aunt at all events said steer-forth when I mentioned it and one deserving of all encouragement daisy my advice is that you take kindly to doctors Commons I quite made up my mind to do so I then told steer-forth that my aunt was in town awaiting me as I found from her letter and that she had taken lodgings for a week at a kind of private hotel at Lincoln's in fields where there was a stone staircase and a convenient door in the roof my aunt being firmly persuaded that every house in London was going to be burnt down every night we achieved the rest of our journey pleasantly sometimes recurring to doctors Commons and anticipating the distant days when I should be a proctor there which steer-forth pictured in a variety of humorous and whimsical lights that made us both merry when we came to our journey's end he went home engaging to call upon me next day but one and I drove to Lincoln's in fields where I found my aunt up and waiting supper if I had been round the world since we parted we could hardly have been better pleased to meet again my aunt cried outright as she embraced me and said pretending to laugh that if my poor mother had been alive that silly little creature would have shed tears she had no doubt so you have left Mr. Dick behind aunt said I I am sorry for that ah Janet how do you do as Janet curtsied hoping I was well I observed my aunt's visage lengthen very much I am sorry for it too said my aunt rubbing her nose I have had no peace of mind trot since I have been here before I could ask why she told me I am convinced said my aunt laying her hand with melancholy firmness on the table that Dick's character is not a character to keep the donkeys off I am confident he wants strength of purpose I ought to have left Janet at home instead and then my mind might perhaps have been at if ever there was a donkey trespassing on my green said my aunt with emphasis there was one this afternoon at four o'clock a cold feeling came over me from head to foot and I know it was a donkey I tried to comfort her on this point but she rejected consolation it was a donkey said my aunt and it was the one with a stumpy tail which that murdering sister of a woman rode when she came to my house this had been ever since the only name my aunt knew from this merge stone if there was any donkey and dover whose audacity it is harder to me to bear than another's that said my aunt striking the table is the animal Janet then should to suggest that my aunt might be disturbing herself unnecessarily and that she believes the donkey in question was then engaged in the sand and gravel line of business and was not available for purposes of trespass but my aunt wouldn't hear of it supper was comfortably served and hot though my aunt's rooms were very high up whether that she might have more stone stairs for her money or might be nearer to the door on the roof I don't know and consisted of a roast foul a steak and some vegetables to all of which I did ample justice and which were all excellent but my aunt had her own ideas concerning London provision and eight but little I suppose this unfortunate foul was born and brought up in a cellar said my aunt and never took the air except on a hackney coach stand I hope the steak may be beef but I don't believe it nothing's genuine in the place in my opinion but the dirt don't you think the foul may have come out of the country and I hinted certainly not returned my aunt it would be no pleasure to a London tradesman to sell anything which was what he pretended it was I did not venture to countervert this opinion but I made a good supper which it greatly satisfied her to see me do when the table was cleared Janet assisted her to arrange her hair to put on her nightcap which was of a smarter construction than usual in case of fire my aunt said and to fold her gown back over her knees these being her usual preparations for warming herself before going to bed I then made her according to certain established regulations from which no deviation however slight could ever be permitted a glass of hot wine and water and a slice of toast cut into long thin strips with these accompaniments we were left alone to finish the evening my aunt sitting opposite to me drinking her wine and water soaking her strips of toast in it one by one before eating them and looking benignantly on me from among the borders of her nightcap well trot she began what do you think of the proctor plan or have you not begun to think about it yet I have thought a good deal about it my dear aunt and I have talked a good deal about it with steerforth I like it very much indeed I like it exceedingly come said my aunt that's cheering I have only one difficulty aunt say what it is trot she returned why I want to ask aunt as this seems from what I understand to be a limited profession whether my entrance into it would not be very expensive it will cost returned my aunt to article you just a thousand pounds now my dear aunt said I drawing my chair nearer I am uneasy in my mind about that it's a large sum of money you have expended a great deal on my education and have always been as liberal to me in all things as it was possible to be you have been the soul of generosity surely there are some ways in which I might begin life with hardly any outlay and yet begin with a good hope of getting on by resolution and exertion are you sure that it would not be better to try that course are you certain that you can afford to part with so much money and that it is right that it should be so expended I only ask you my second mother to consider are you certain my aunt finished eating the piece of toast on which she was then engaged looking me full in the face all the while and then setting her glass on the chimney piece and folding her hands upon her folded skirts replied as follows trot my child if I have any object in life it is to provide for your being a good a sensible and a happy man I am bent upon it so is dick I should like some people that I know to hear dick's conversation on the subject its sagacity is wonderful but no one knows the resources of that man's intellect except myself she stopped for a moment to take my hand between hers and went on it's in vain trot to recall the past unless it works some influence upon the present perhaps I might have been better friends with your poor father perhaps I might have been better friends with that poor child your mother even after your sister Betsy Trotwood disappointed me when you came to me a little runaway boy all dusty and way worn perhaps I thought so from that time until now trot you have ever been a credit to me and a pride and a pleasure I have no other claim upon my means at least here to my surprise she hesitated and was confused no I have no other claim upon my means and you are my adopted child only be a loving child to me in my age and bear with my whims and fancies and you will do more for an old woman whose prime of life was not so happy or conciliating as it might have been than ever that old woman did for you it was the first time I had heard my aunt refer to her past history there was a magnanimity in her quiet way of doing so and of dismissing it which would have exalted her in my respect and affection if anything could all is agreed and understood between us no trot said my aunt and we need talk of this no more give me a kiss and we'll go to the commons after breakfast tomorrow we had a long chat by the fire before we went to bed I slept in a room on the same floor with my aunt's and was a little disturbed in the course of the night by her knocking at my door as often as she was agitated by a distant sound of hackney coaches or market carts and inquiring if I heard the engines but towards morning she slept better and suffered me to do so too at about midday we set out for the office of Messrs Spenlo and Jorkens and doctors commons my aunt who had this other general opinion in reference to London that every man she saw was a pickpocket gave me her purse to carry for her which had 10 guineas in it and some silver we made a pause at the toy shop in Fleet Street to see the giants of Saint Dunstan's strike upon the balls we had timed our going so as to catch them at it at 12 o'clock and then went on towards Ludgate Hill and Saint Paul's churchyard we were crossing to the former place when I found that my aunt greatly accelerated her speed and looked frightened I observed at the same time that a lowering ill-dressed man who had stopped and stared at us in passing a little before was coming so close after us as to brush against her trot my dear trot cried my aunt in a terrified whisper and pressing my arm I don't know what I am to do don't be alarmed said I there's nothing to be afraid of step into a shop and I'll soon get rid of this fellow no no child she returned don't speak to him for the world I entreat I order you good heaven aunt said I he is nothing but a sturdy beggar you don't know what he is replied my aunt you don't know who he is you don't know what you say we had stopped in an empty doorway while this was passing and he had stopped too don't look at him said my aunt as I turned my head indignantly but get me a coach my dear and wait for me in st paul's churchyard wait for you I replied yes rejoined my aunt I must go alone I must go with him with him aunt this man I am in my senses she replied and I tell you I must get me a coach however much astonished I might be I was sensible that I had no right to refuse compliance with such a peremptory command I hurried away a few paces and called a hackney chariot which was passing empty almost before I could let down the steps my aunt spraying in I don't know how and the man followed she waved her hand to me to go away so earnestly that all confounded as I was I turned from them at once in doing so I heard her say to the coachman drive anywhere drive straight on and presently the chariot passed me going up the hill what mr. dick had told me and what I had supposed to be a delusion of his now came into my mind I could not doubt that this person was the person of whom he had made such mysterious mention though what the nature of his hold upon my aunt could possibly be I was quite unable to imagine after half an hour's cooling in the churchyard I saw the chariot coming back the driver stopped beside me and my aunt was sitting in it alone she had not yet sufficiently recovered from her agitation to be quite prepared for the visit we had to make she desired me to get into the chariot and to tell the coachman to drive slowly up and down a little while she said no more except my dear child never asked me what it was and don't refer to it until she had perfectly regained her composure when she told me she was quite herself now and we might get out on her giving me her purse to pay the driver I found that all the guineas were gone and only the loose silver remained doctor's commons was approached by a little low archway before we had taken many paces down the street beyond it the noise of the city seemed to melt as if by magic into a softened distance a few dull courts and narrow ways brought us to the skylighted offices of spinelow and jorkens in the vestibule of which temple accessible to pilgrims without the ceremony of knocking three or four clerks were at work as copyists one of these a little dry man sitting by himself who wore a stiff brown wig that looked as if it were made of gingerbread rose to receive my aunt and show us into mr spinelow's room mr spinelow's in court ma'am said the dry man it's an arches day but it's close by and i'll send for him directly as we were left to look about us while mr spinelow was fetched I availed myself of the opportunity the furniture of the room was old-fashioned and dusty and the green bays on the top of the writing table had lost all its color and was as withered and pale as an old pauper there were a great many bundles of papers on it some endorsed as allegations and some to my surprise as libels and some as being in the consistory court and some in the arches court and some in the prerogative court and some in the admiralty court and some in the delegates court giving me occasion to wonder much how many courts there might be in the gross and how long it would take to understand them all besides these there were sundry immense manuscript books of evidence taken on affidavit strongly bound and tied together in massive sets a set to each cause as if every cause were a history in 10 or 20 volumes all this looked tolerably expensive i thought and gave me an agreeable notion of a proctor's business i was casting my eyes with increasing complacency over these and many similar objects when hasty footsteps were heard in the room outside and mr. spinelow in a black gown trimmed with white fur came hurrying in taking off his hat as he came he was a little light-haired gentleman with undeniable boots and the stiffest of white cravats and shirt collars he was buttoned up mighty trim and tight and must have taken a great deal of pains with his whiskers which were accurately curled his gold watch chain was so massive that a fancy came across me that he ought to have a sinewy golden arm to draw it out with like those which are put up over the gold beater's shops he was got up with such care and was so stiff that he could hardly bend himself being obliged when he glanced at some papers on his desk after sitting down in his chair to move his whole body from the bottom of his spine like punch i had previously been presented by my aunt and had been courteously received he now said and so mr. copperfield do you think of entering into our profession i casually mentioned to miss trotwood when i had the pleasure of an interview with her the other day with another inclination of his body punch again that there was a vacancy here miss trotwood was good enough to mention that she had a nephew who was her peculiar care and for whom she was seeking to provide gentile in life that nephew i believe i have now the pleasure of punch again i bowed my acknowledgments and said my aunt had mentioned to me that there was that opening and that i believed i should like it very much that i was strongly inclined to like it and had taken immediately to the proposal that i could not absolutely pledge myself to like it until i knew something more about it that although it was little else than a matter of form i presumed i should have an opportunity of trying how i liked it before i bound myself to it irrevocably oh surely surely said mr. spinelow we always in this house propose a month an initiatory month i should be happy myself to propose two months three an indefinite period in fact but i have a partner mr. jorkens and the premium sir i returned is a thousand pounds and the premium stamp included is a thousand pounds said mr. spinelow as i have mentioned to miss trotwood i am actuated by no mercenary considerations few men are less so i believe but mr. jorkens has his opinions on these subjects and i am bound to respect mr. jorkens's opinions mr jorkens thinks a thousand pounds too little in short i suppose sir said i still desiring to spare my aunt that it is not the custom here if an article clerk were particularly useful and made himself a perfect master of his profession i could not help blushing this looked so like praising myself i suppose it is not the custom in the later years of his time to allow him any mr. spinelow by a great effort just lifted his head far enough out of his cravat to shake it and answered anticipating the word salary no i will not say what consideration i might give to that point myself mr copperfield if i were unfettered mr jorkens is immovable i was quite dismayed by the idea of this terrible jorkens but i found out afterwards that he was a mild man of a heavy temperament whose place in the business was to keep himself in the background and be constantly exhibited by name is the most obdurate and ruthless of men if a clerk wanted his salary raised mr jorkens wouldn't listen to such a proposition if a client was slow to settle his bill of costs mr jorkens was resolved to have it paid and however painful these things might be and always were to the feelings of mr spinelow mr jorkens would have his bond the heart and hand of the good angel spinelow would have been always open but for the restraining demon jorkens as i have grown older i think i have had experience of some other houses doing business on the principle of spinelow and jorkens it was settled that i should begin my month's probation as soon as i pleased and that my aunt need neither remain in town nor return at its expiration as the articles of agreement of which i was to be the subject could easily be sent to her at home for her signature when we had got so far mr spinelow offered to take me into court then and there and show me what sort of place it was as i was willing enough to know we went out with this object leaving my aunt behind who would trust herself she said in no such place and who i think regarded all courts of law as a sort of powder mills that might blow up at any time mr spinelow conducted me through a paved courtyard formed of grave brick houses which i inferred from the doctor's names upon the doors to be the official abiding places of the learned advocates of whom stirforth had told me and into a large dull room not unlike a chapel to my thinking on the left hand the upper part of this room was fenced off from the rest and there on the two sides of a raised platform of the horseshoe form sitting on easy old-fashioned dining room chairs were sundry gentlemen in red gowns and gray wigs whom i found to be the doctors at four said blinking over a little desk like a pulpit desk in the curve of the horseshoe was an old gentleman whom if i had seen him in an aviary i should certainly have taken for an owl but who i learned was the presiding judge in the space within the horseshoe lower than these that is to say on about the level of the floor were sundry other gentlemen of mr spinelow's rank and dressed like him in black gowns with white fur upon them sitting at a long green table their cravats were in general stiff i thought and their looks haughty but in this last respect i presently conceived i had done them an injustice for when two or three of them had to rise and answer a question of the presiding dignitary i never saw anything more sheepish the public represented by a boy with a comforter and a shabby gentile man secretly eating crumbs out of his coat pockets was warming itself at a stove in the center of the court the languid stillness of the place was only broken by the chirping of this fire and by the voice of one of the doctors who was wandering slowly through a perfect library of evidence and stopping to put up from time to time at little roadside ends of argument on the journey altogether i have never on any occasion made one at such a cozy dosy old-fashioned time-forgotten sleepy-headed little family party in all my life and i felt it would be quite a soothing opiate to belong to it in any character except perhaps as a suitor very well satisfied with the dreamy nature of this retreat i informed mr. spenlo that i had seen enough for that time and we rejoined my aunt in company with whom i presently departed from the commons feeling very young when i went out of spenlo and jorkens's on account of the clerks poking one another with their pens to point me out we arrived at lincoln's in fields without any new adventures except encountering an unlucky donkey in a costar monger's cart who suggested painful associations to my aunt we had another long talk about my plans when we were safely housed and as i knew she was anxious to get home and between fire food and pickpockets could never be considered at her ease for half an hour in london i urged her not to be uncomfortable on my account but to leave me to take care of myself i have not been here a week tomorrow without considering that too my dear she returned there is a furnished little set of chambers to be let in the adelphi trot which ought to suit you to a marvel with this brief introduction she produced from her pocket an advertisement carefully cut out of a newspaper setting forth that in buckingham street in the adelphi there was to be let furnished with a view of the river a singularly desirable and compact set of chambers forming a gentile residence for a young gentleman a member of one of the ins of court or otherwise was immediate possession terms moderate and could be taken for a month only if required why this is the very thing aunts that i flushed with the possible dignity of living in chambers then come replied my aunt immediately resuming the bonnet she had a minute before laid aside we'll go and look at them away we went the advertisement directed us to apply to mrs. krupp on the premises and we rung the area bell which we supposed to communicate with mrs. krupp it was not until we had rung three or four times that we could prevail on mrs. krupp to communicate with us but at last she appeared being a stout lady with a flounce of flannel petticoat below an ankeen gown let us see these chambers of yours if you please ma'am said my aunt for this gentleman said mrs. krupp feeling in her pocket for her keys yes for my nephew said my aunt and a sweet said they is for sitch said mrs. krupp so we went upstairs they were on the top of the house a great point with my aunt being near the fire escape and consisted of a little half blind entry where you could see hardly anything a little stone blind pantry where you could see nothing at all a sitting room and a bedroom the furniture was rather faded but quite good enough for me and sure enough the river was outside the windows as i was delighted with the place my aunt and mrs. krupp withdrew into the pantry to discuss the terms while i remained on the sitting room sofa hardly daring to think it possible that i could be destined to live in such a noble residence after a single combat of some duration they returned and i saw to my joy both in mrs. krupp's countenance ended my aunt's that the deed was done is it the last occupants furniture inquired my aunt yes it is ma'am said mrs. krupp what's become of him asked my aunt mrs. krupp was taken with a troublesome cough in the midst of which she articulated with much difficulty he was took ill here ma'am and uh uh uh dear me and he died hey what did he die of asked my aunt well ma'am he died of drink said mrs. krupp in confidence and smoke smoke you don't mean chimneys said my aunt no ma'am returned mrs. krupp cigars and pipes that's not catching trot at any rate remarked my aunt turning to me no indeed said i in short my aunt seeing how enraptured i was with the premises took them for a month but leave to remain for 12 months when that time was out mrs. krupp was to find linen and to cook every other necessary was already provided and mrs. krupp expressly intimated that she should always yearn towards me as a son i was to take possession the day after tomorrow and mrs. krupp said thank heaven she had now found someone she could care for on our way back my aunt informed me how she confidently trusted that the life i was now to lead would make me firm and self-reliant which was all i wanted she repeated this several times next day in the intervals of our arranging for the transmission of my clothes and books for mrs. wickfields relative to which and to all my late holiday i wrote a long letter to agnes of which my aunt took charge as she was to leave on the succeeding day not to lengthen these particulars i need only add that she made a handsome provision for all my possible wants during my month of trial that steerforth to my great disappointment and hers too did not make his appearance before she went away that i saw her safely seated in a dover coach exalting in the coming discomforture of the vagrant donkeys with janet at her side and that when the coach was gone i turned my face to the adelphi pondering on the old days when i used to roam about its subterranean arches and on the happy changes which had brought me to the surface end of chapter 23 chapter 24 of david copperfield this is a libravox recording all libravox recordings are in the public domain for more information or to volunteer please visit libravox.org recording by simon evers david copperfield by charles dickens chapter 24 my first dissipation it was a wonderfully fine thing to have that lofty castle to myself and to feel when i shut my outer door like robinson cruzo when he'd got into his fortification and pulled his ladder up after him it was a wonderfully fine thing to walk about town with the key of my house in my pocket and to know that i could ask any fellow to come home and make quite sure of its being inconvenient to nobody if it were not so to me it was a wonderfully fine thing to let myself in and out and to come and go without a word to anyone and to ring mrs crop up gasping from the depths of the earth when i wanted her and when she was disposed to come all this i say was wonderfully fine but i must say too that there were times when it was very dreary it was fine in the morning particularly in the fine mornings it looked a very fresh free life by daylight still fresher and more free by sunlight but as the day declined the life seemed to go down too i don't know how it was it seldom looked well by candlelight i wanted somebody to talk to then i missed agnes i found a tremendous blank in the place of that smiling repository of my confidence mrs crop appeared to be a long way off i thought about my predecessor who had died of drink and smoke and i could have wished he'd been so good as to live and not bother me with his disease after two days and nights i felt as if i'd lived there for a year yet i was not an hour older but was quite as much tormented by my own youthfulness as ever steerforth not yet appearing which induced me to apprehend that he must be ill i left the commons early on the third day and walked out to high gate mrs steerforth was very glad to see me and said that he'd gone away with one of his oxford friends to see another who lived near st. augments but that she expected him to return to moray i was so fond of him that i felt quite jealous of his oxford friends as she pressed me to stay to dinner i remained and i believe we've talked about nothing but him all day i told her how much the people liked him at yarmouth and what a delightful companion he had been mrs dartle was full of hints and mysterious questions but took a great interest in all our proceedings there and said was it really though and so forth so often that she got everything out of me she wanted to know her appearance it was exactly what i have described it when i first saw her but the society of the two ladies was so agreeable and came so natural to me that i felt myself falling a little in love with her i could not help thinking several times in the course of the evening and particularly when i walked home at night what delightful company she would be in buckiam street i was taking my coffee and roll in the morning before going to the commons and i may observe in this place that it is surprising how much coffee mrs crup used and how weak it was considering when steerforth himself walked in to my unbounded joy my dear steerforth criteria i began to think i would never see you again i was carried off by force of arms since steerforth the very next morning after i got home why daisy what a rare old bachelor you are here i showed him over the establishment not omitting the pantry with no little pride and he commended it highly i tell you what old boy he added i should make quite a townhouse of this place unless you give me notice to quit this was a delightful hearing i told him if he waited for that he would have to wait till doomsday but you should have some breakfast said i with my hand on the bell rope and mrs crup shall make you some fresh coffee and i'll toast you some bacon in a bachelor's dutch oven that i've got here no no said steerforth don't ring i can't i'm going to breakfast with one of these fellows who is at the piazza hotel in covent garden but you'll come back to dinner said i i can't upon my life there's nothing i should like better but i must remain with these two fellows we're all three off together tomorrow morning then bring them here to dinner i returned do you think they come oh they would come fast enough said steerforth but we should inconvenience you you better come and dine with us somewhere i would not by any means consent to this for it occurred to me that i really ought to have a little housewarming and that there never could be a better opportunity i had a new pride in my rooms after his approval of them and burned with the desire to develop their utmost resources i therefore made him promise positively in the names of his two friends and we appointed six o'clock as the dinner are when he was gone i rang for mrs. krupp and acquainted her with my desperate design mrs. krupp said in the first place of course it was well known she couldn't be expected to wait but she knew a handy young man who she thought could be prevailed upon to do it and whose terms would be five shillings and what i pleased i said certainly we should have him next mrs. krupp said it was clear she couldn't be in two places at once which i felt to be reasonable and that a young gal stationed at the pantry with a bedroom candle there never to desist from washing plates would be indispensable i said what would be the expense of this young female and mrs. krupp said she supposed eighteen pence would neither make me nor break me i said i supposed not and that was settled then mrs. krupp said now about the dinner it was a remarkable instance of want of forethought on the part of the arnmunger who made mrs. krupp's kitchen fireplace that it was capable of cooking nothing but chops and mashed potatoes as to a fish-kittle mrs. krupp said well would i only come and look at the range she couldn't say fairer than that would i come and look at it i thought should not have been much the wiser if i had looked at it i declined and said never mind fish but mrs. krupp said don't say that oysters him why not them so that was settled mrs. krupp then said what she would recommend would be this a pair of hot roast fowls from the pastry cooks a dish of stewed beef with vegetables from the pastry cooks two little corner things as a raced pie and a dish of kidneys from the pastry cooks a tart and if i liked a shape of jelly from the pastry cooks this mrs. krupp said would leave her at full liberty to concentrate her mind on the potatoes and to serve up the cheese and celery as she could wish to see it done i acted on mrs. krupp's opinion and gave the order at the pastry cooks myself walking along the strand afterwards and observing a hard mottled substance in the window of a ham and a beef shop which resembled marble but was labeled mock turtle i went in and bought a slab of it which i've since seen reasonably would have sufficed for 15 people this preparation mrs. krupp after some difficulty consented to warm up and it shrunk so much in a liquid state though we found it what steerforth called rather a tight fit for four these preparations happily completed i bought a little dessert in covent garden market and gave a rather extensive order at a retail wine merchants in that vicinity when i came in the afternoon and saw the bottles drawn up in a square on the pantry floor they looked so numerous there were two missing which made mrs krupp very uncomfortable i was absolutely frightened of them one of steerforth's friends was named granger and the other markham they were both very gay and lively fellows granger something older than steerforth markham youthful looking and i should say not more than 20 i observed that the latter always spoke of himself indefinitely as a man and seldom or never in the first person singular a man might get on very well here mr. copperfield said markham meaning himself it's not a bad situation said i and the rooms are really commodious i hope you've both bought appetites with you said steerforth upon my honor returned markham town seems to sharpen a man's appetite a man is hungry all day long a man is perpetually eating being a little embarrassed at first and feeling much too young to preside i made steerforth take the head of the table when dinner was announced and seated myself opposite to him everything was very good we did not spare the wine and he exerted himself so brilliantly to make the thing pass off well that there was no pause in our festivity i was not quite such a good company during dinner as i could have wished to be for my chair was opposite the door and my attention was distracted by observing that the handy young man went out of the room very often and that his shadow always presented itself immediately afterwards on the wall of the entry with a bottle at its mouth the young girl likewise occasioned me some uneasiness not so much by neglecting to wash the plates as by breaking them for being of an inquisitive disposition and unable to confine herself as her positive instructions were to the pantry she was constantly peering into us and constantly imagining herself detected in which belief she several times retired upon the plates with which she had carefully paved the floor and did a great deal of destruction these however were small drawbacks and easily forgotten when the cloth was cleared and the dessert put on the table at which period of the entertainment the handy young man was discovered to be speechless giving him private directions to seek the society of mrs. krupp and to remove the young gal to the basement also i banded myself to enjoyment i began by being singularly cheerful and light hearted all sorts of half-forgotten things to talk about came rushing into my mind and made me hold forth in a most unwonted manner i laughed heartily at my own jokes and everybody else's called stf fourth order for not passing the wine made several engagements to go to oxford announced that i meant to have a dinner party exactly like that once a week until further notice and madly took so much snuff out of granger's box that i was obliged to go into the pantry and have a private fit of sneezing at ten minutes long i went on by passing the wine faster and faster yet and continually starting up with a corkscrew to open more wine long before any was needed i proposed stf fourth's health i said he was my dearest friend of the protector of my boyhood and the companion of my prime i said i was delighted to propose his health i said i owed him more obligations than i could ever repay and held him in a higher admiration than i could ever express i finished by saying i'll give you stf fourth god bless him hooray we gave him three times three and another and a good one to finish with i broke my glass in going round the table to shake hands with him and i said in two words stf fourth you're the guiding star of my existence i went on by finding suddenly that somebody was in the middle of a song markham was the singer and he sang when the heart of a man is depressed with care he said when he'd sung it he would give us woman i took objection to that and i couldn't delight i said it was not a respectful way of reposing the toast and i would never permit that that toast to be drunk in my house otherwise than the ladies i was very high with him mainly i think because i saw stf fourth and granger laughing at me or tim or both of us he said a man was not to be dictated to i said a man was he said a man was not to be insulted then i said he was right there never under my roof where the ladies were sacred and the laws of hospitality paramount he said it was no derogation from man's dignity to confess that i was a devilish good fellow i instantly proposed his health somebody was smoking we were all smoking i was smoking and trying to suppress a rising tendency to shudder stf fourth had made a speech about me in the course of which i had been affected almost to tears i returned thanks and hoped the present company would die with me tomorrow and the day after each day at five o'clock that we might enjoy the pleasures of conversation and society through a long evening i felt called upon to propose an individual i give them my aunt miss betsy trotwood the best of her sex somebody was leaning out of my bedroom window refreshing his forehead against the cool stone of the parapet and feeling the air upon his face it was myself i was addressing myself as copperfield and saying why did you try to smoke you might have known you couldn't do it now somebody was unsteadily contemplating his features in the looking-glass that was i too i was very pale in the looking-glass my eyes had a vacant appearance and my hair only my hair nothing else looked drunk somebody said to me let us go to the theater copperfield there was no bedroom before me but again the jingling table covered with glasses the lamp granger on my right hand mark them on my left and stf fourth opposite all sitting in a mist and a long way off theater to be sure the very thing come along but they must excuse me if i saw everybody out first and turn the lamp off in case of fire going to some confusion in the dark the door was gone i was feeling for it in the window curtains when stf fourth laughing took me by the arm and let me out we went downstairs one behind the another near the bottom somebody fell and rolled down somebody else said it was copperfield i was angry at that false report until finding myself on my back in the passage i began to think there might be some foundation for it a very foggy night with great rings around the lamps in the streets there was an indistinct talk of its being wet i considered it frosty stf fourth dusted me under a lamp post and put my hat into shape which somebody produced from somewhere in a most extraordinary manner for i hadn't had it on before stf fourth then said you're right copperfield are you not and i told him you're a bearer a man sitting in a pigeonhole place looked out of the fog and took money from somebody inquiring if i was one of the gentlemen paid for and appearing rather doubtful as i remember in the glimpse i had of him whether to take the money for me or not shortly afterwards we were very high up in a very hot theater looking down into a large pit that seemed to me to smoke the people with whom it was crammed was so indistinct there was a great stage two looking very clean and smooth after the streets and there were people upon it talking about something rather but not at all intelligently there was an abundance of bright lights and there was music and there were ladies down in the boxes and i don't know what more the whole building looked to me as if it were learning to swim it conducted itself in such an unaccountable manner when i tried to study it on somebody's motion we resolved to go downstairs to the dress boxes where the ladies were a gentleman lounging full dressed on a sofa with an opera glass in his hand passed before my view and also my own figure at full length and a glass then i was being ushered into one of these boxes and found myself saying something as i sat down and people about me crying silence to somebody and ladies casting indignant lances at me and what yes agnes sitting on the seat before me in the same box with a lady and gentleman beside whom i didn't know i see her face now better than i did then i dare say with this indelible look of regret and wonder turned upon me agnes i said thickly more pleasantly agnes hush pray she answered i could not conceive why you disturb the company look at the stage i tried on her injunction to fix it and to hear something of what was going on there but quite in vain i looked at her again by and by and saw her shrink into her corner and put her gloved hand to her forehead agnes i said i'm afraid you're not well yes yes do not mind me trot wood she returned listen are you going away soon have i been away soon i repeated yes i had a stupid intention of replying that i was going to wait to hand her downstairs i suppose i expressed it somehow for after she had looked at me attentively for a little while she appeared to understand and replied in a low tone i know you will do as i ask you if i tell you i am very earnest in it go away now trot wood for my sake and ask your friends to take you home she had so far improved me for the time that now i was angry with her i felt ashamed with a short worry which i intended for good night got up and went away they followed and i stepped at once out of the box door into my bedroom where only stia force was with me helping me to undress and where i was by turn telling him that agnes was my sister and aduring him to bring the corkscrew that i might open another bottle of wine how somebody lying in my bed lay saying and doing all this over again at cross-purposes in a feverish dream all night the bed a rocking sea that was never still how as that somebody slowly settled down into myself did i begin to patch and feel as if my outer covering of skin were a hard board my tongue the bottom of an empty kettle furred with long service and burning up over a slow fire the palms of my hands hot plates of metal which no ice could cool but the agony of mind the remorse and shame i felt when i became conscious next day my horror of having committed a thousand offenses i had forgotten and which nothing could ever expiate my recollection of that indebtable look which agnes had given me the torturing impossibility of communicating with her not knowing beast that i was how she came to be in london or where she stayed my disgust of the very sight of the room where the rebel had been held my racking head the smell of smoke the sight of glasses the impossibility of going out or even getting up oh what a day it was oh what an evening when i sat down by my fire to a basin of mutton broth dimpled all over with fat and thought i was going the way of my predecessor i should succeed to his dismal story as well as to his chambers and at half a mind to rush express to daiva and reveal all what an evening when mrs. krupp coming in to take away the broth basin produced one kidney on a cheese plate as the entire remains of yesterday's feast and i was really inclined to fall upon her nankine breast and say in heartfelt penitence oh mrs. krupp mrs. krupp never mind the broken meats are very miserable and in that i doubted even at that pass it mrs. krupp were quite the sort of woman to confide in end of chapter 24 recording by simon evers chapter 25 of david copperfield this is a librivox recording all librivox recordings are in the public domain for more information or to volunteer please visit librivox.org recording by simon evers david copperfield by charles dickens chapter 25 good and bad angels i was going out at my door on the morning after that deplorable day of headache sickness and repentance with an odd confusion in my mind relative to the date of my dinner party as if a body of titans had taken an enormous lever and pushed the day before yesterday some months back when i saw a ticket porter coming upstairs with a letter in his hand he was taking his time about his errand then but when he saw me on the top of the staircase looking at him over the banisters he swung into a trot and came up panting as if he had run himself into a state of exhaustion tilly copperfield disquire said the ticket porter touching his hat with his little cane i could scarcely lay claim to the name i was so disturbed by the conviction that the letter came from agnes however i told him that i was t copperfield disquire and he believed it and gave me the letter which he said required an answer i shut him out on the landing to wait for the answer and went into my chambers again in such a nervous state that i was feigned to lay the letter down on my breakfast table and familiarize myself with the outside of it a little before i could resolve to break the seal i found when i did open it that it was a very kind note containing no reference to my condition at the theater all it said was my dear trot wood i'm staying at the house of my papa's agent mr waterbrook in eddie place holborn will you come and see me today at any time you like to a point over yours affectionately agnes it took me such a long time to write an answer at all to my satisfaction that i don't know what the ticket porter can have thought unless he thought i was learning to write i must have written half a dozen answers at least i began one how can i ever hope my dear agnes to a face from your remembrance the disgusting impression there i didn't like it and then i threw it up i began another shakespeare has observed my dear agnes how strange it is that a man should put an me into his mouth that reminded me of markham and he got no father i even tried poetry i began one note in a six syllable line oh do not remember but that associated itself with the fifth of november and became an absurdity after many attempts i wrote my dear agnes your letter is like you and what could i save it that we hire praise than that i will come at four o'clock affectionately and sorrowfully t c with this missive which i was in twenty minds at once about recalling as soon as it was out of my hands the ticket porter at last departed if the day were half as tremendous to any other professional gentlemen in doctor's commons as it was to me i sincerely believe he made some expiation for his share in that rotten old ecclesiastical cheese although i left the office at half past three and was prowling about the place of appointment within a few minutes afterwards the appointed time was exceeded by a full quarter of an hour according to the clock of st andrews holman before i could muster up sufficient desperation to pull the private bell handle led into the left hand doorpost of mr waterbreak's house the professional business of mr waterbreak's establishment was done on the ground floor and the genteel business of which there was a good deal in the upper part of the building i was shown into a pretty but rather close drawing room and there sat agnes netting a purse she looked so quiet and good and reminded me so strongly of my airy fresh school days at canterbury and the sodden smoky stupid wretch i had been the other night that nobody being by i yielded to myself reproach and shame and in short made a fool of myself i cannot deny that i shed tears to this hour i'm undecided whether it was upon the whole the wisest thing i could have done or the most ridiculous if it had been anyone but you agnes said i turning away my head i should not have minded it half so much but that it should have been you who saw me i almost wish i'd been dead first she put her hand its touch was like no other hand upon my arm for a moment and i felt so befriended and comforted that i could not help moving it to my lips and gratefully kissing it sit down said agnes cheerfully don't be unhappy trot wood if you cannot confidently trust me whom will you trust our agnes i returned you are my good angel she smiled rather sadly i thought and shook her head yes agnes my good angel always my good angel if i were indeed trot wood she returned there is one thing that i should set my heart on very much i looked at her inquiringly but already with a foreknowledge of her meaning on warning you said agnes with a steady glance against your bad angel my dear agnes i began if you mean steer forth i do trot wood she returned then agnes you wrong him very much he my bad angel or anyone's he anything but a guide a support and a friend to me my dear agnes now is it not unjust and unlike you to judge him from what you saw of me the other night i do not judge him from what i saw of you the other night she quietly replied from what then from many things trifles in themselves but they do not seem to me to be so when they are put together i judge him partly from your account of him trot wood and your character and the influence he has over you there was always something in her modest voice that seemed to touch a chord within me answering to that sound alone it was always earnest but when it was very earnest as it was now there was a thrill in it that quite subdued me i sat looking at her as she cast her eyes down on her work i sat seeming still to listen to her and steer forth in spite of all my attachment to him darkened in that tone it is very bold in me said agnes looking up again who have lived in such seclusion and can know so little of the world to give you my advice so confidently or even to have this strong opinion but i know him what is his engendered trot wood in how true remembrance of our having grown up together and in how true an interest in all relating to you it is that which makes me bold i'm certain that what i say is right i'm quite sure it is i feel as if it was someone else speaking to you and not i when i caution you that you have made a dangerous friend again i looked at her again i listened to her after she was silent and again his image there was still fixed in my heart darkened i am not so unreasonable as to expect said agnes resuming her usual tone after a little while that you will or that you can at once change any sentiment that has become a conviction to you least of all a sentiment that is rooted in your trusting disposition you are not hastily to do that i only ask you trot wood if you ever think of me i mean with a quiet smile for i was going to interrupt her and she knew why as often as you think of me to think of what i have said do you forgive me for all this i will forgive you agnes i replied when you come to do steer forth justice and to like him as well as i do not until then said agnes i saw a passing shadow on her face when i made this mention of him but she returned my smile and we were again as unreserved in our mutual confidence as of old and when agnes said i will you forgive me the other night when i recall it said agnes she would have dismissed the subject so but i was too full of it to allow that and insisted on telling her how it happened that i had disgraced myself and what chain of accidental circumstances had had the theater for its final link it was a great relief to me to do this and to enlarge on the obligation that i owed to steer forth for his care of me when i was unable to take care of myself you must not forget said agnes calmly changing the conversation as soon as i had concluded that you're always to tell me not only when you fall into trouble but when you fall in love who has succeeded in miss larkin's trotwood no one agnes some one trot would said agnes laughing and holding up her finger no agnes upon my word there is a lady certainly at mrs steerforth's house who is very clever and whom i liked to talk to miss dartle but i don't adore her agnes laughed again at her own penetration and told me that if i were faithful to her in my confidence she thought she could keep a little register of my violent attachments with the date duration and determination of each like the table of the reins of the kings and queens in the history of england then she asked me if i had seen your your eye heap said i no is he in london he comes to the office downstairs every day returned agnes he was in london a week before me i'm afraid on disagreeable business trotwood on some business that made you uneasy agnes i see said i what can that be agnes laid aside her worker and replied folding her hands upon one another and looking pensively at me out of those beautiful soft eyes of hers i believe he's going to enter into partnership with papa what your ryer that mean a fawning fellow worm himself into such promotion i cried indignantly have you made no real monstrance about it agnes consider what a connection it is likely to be you must speak out you must not allow your father to take such a mad a step you must prevent it agnes while there's time still looking at me agnes shook her head while i was speaking with a faint smile at my warmth and then replied you remember our last conversation about papa it was not long after that's not more than two or three days when he gave me the first intimation of what i tell you it was sad to see him struggling between his desire to represent it to me as a matter of choice on his part and his inability to conceal that it was forced upon him i felt very sorry forced upon him agnes who forces it upon him your ryer she replied after a moment's hesitation has made himself indispensable to papa he is subtle and watchful he has mastered papa's weaknesses fostered them and taken advantage of them until to say all that i mean in a word trodwood until papa is afraid of him there was more that she might have said more than she knew or that she suspected i clearly saw i could not give her pain by asking what it was for i knew that she withheld it from me to spare her father it had long been going on to this i was sensible yes i could not but feel on the least reflection that it been going on to this for a long time i remained silent his ascendancy of a papa said agnes is very great he professes humility and gratitude with truth perhaps i hope so but his position is really one of power and i fear he makes a hard use of his power i said he was a hound which at the moment was a great satisfaction to me at the time i speak of as the time when papa spoke to me pursued agnes he had told papa that he was going away that he was very sorry and unwilling to leave but that he had better prospects papa was very much depressed then and more bowed down by care than ever you or i have seen him but he seemed relieved by this expedient of the partnership though at the same time he seemed hurt by it and ashamed of it and how did you receive it agnes i did trodwood she replied what i hope was right feeling sure that it was necessary for papa's peace that the sacrifice should be made i entreated him to make it i said it would lighten the load of his life i hope it will and that it would give me increased opportunities of being his companion oh trodwood cried agnes putting her hands before her face as her tear started on it i almost feel as if i had been papa's enemy instead of his loving child for i know how he has altered in his devotion to me i know how he has narrowed the circle of his sympathies and duties in the concentration of his whole mind upon me i know what a multitude of things he has shut out for my sake and how his anxious thoughts of me has shadowed his life and weakened his strength and energy by turning them always upon one idea if i could ever set this right if i could ever work out his restoration as i have said innocently being the cause of his decline i had never before seen agnes cry i'd seen tears in her eyes when i brought new honors home from school and i had seen them there when we last spoke about her father and i had seen her turn her gentle head aside when we took leave of one another but i had never seen her grieve like this it made me so sorry that i could only say in a foolish helpless manner pray agnes don't don't my dear sister but agnes was too superior to me in character and purpose as i know well now whatever i might know or not know then to be long in need of my entreaties the beautiful calm manner which made her so different in my remembrance from everybody else came back again as if a cloud had passed from a serene sky we are not likely to remain alone much longer said agnes and when i have an opportunity let me earnestly entreat you trotwood to be friendly to your eye don't repel him don't resent as i think you have a general disposition to do what may be uncogenial to you in him he may not deserve it for we know no certain ill of him in any case think first of papa and me agnes had no time to say more for the room door opened a mrs waterbroke who was a large lady or who wore a large dress i don't exactly know which for i don't know which was dress and which was lady came sailing in i had a dim recollection of having seen her at the theater as if i'd seen her in a pale magic lantern but she appeared to remember me perfectly and still to suspect me of being in a state of intoxication finding my degree so that i was sober and i hope that i was a modest young gentleman mrs waterbroke softened towards me considerably and inquired firstly if i went much into the parks and secondly if i went much into society on my reply to both these questions in the negative it occurred to me that i've felt again in her good opinion but she concealed the fact gracefully and invited me to dinner next day i accepted the invitation and took my leave making a call on your eye and the office as i went out and leaving a car for him in his absence when i went to dinner next today and on the street door being open plunged into a vapor bath of haunch of mutton i divined that i was not the only guest for i immediately identified the ticket porter in disguise assisting the family servant and waiting at the foot of the stairs to carry up my name he looked to the best of his ability when he asked me for it confidentially as if he had never seen me before but well did i know him and well did he know me conscience made cowards of us both i found mr waterbroke to be a middle-aged gentleman with a short throat and a good deal of shirt collar who only wanted a black nose to be the portrait of a pug dog he told me he was happy to have the honor of making my quaintance and when i paid my homage to mrs waterbroke presented me with much ceremony to a very awful lady in a black velvet dress and a great black velvet hat whom i remember as looking like a near relation of hamlets say his aunt mrs henry spiker was this lady's name and her husband was there too so cold a man that his head instead of being gray seemed to be sprinkled with whole frost immense deference was shown to the henry spikers male and female which agnes told me was on account of mr henry spiker being solicitor to something or to somebody i forget what or which remotely connected with the treasury i found your eye a heap among the company in a suit of black and in deep humility he told me when i shook hands with him that he was proud to be noticed by me and that he really felt obliged to me for my condescension i could have wished he'd been less obliged to me for he hovered about me in his gratitude all the rest of the evening and whenever i said a word to agnes was sure with his shadowless eyes and cadaverous face to be looking gauntly down upon us from behind there were other guests all iced for the occasion as he struck me like the wine but there was one who attracted my attention before he came in on account of my hearing him announced as mr traddles my mind flew back to salem house and could it be tommy i thought he used to draw the skeletons i look for mr trellis with unusual interest he was a sober steady-looking young man of retiring manners with a comic head of hair and eyes that were rather wide open and he got into an obscure corner so soon that i had some difficulty in making him out at length i had a good view of him and either my vision deceived me or it was the old unfortunate tommy i made my way to mr waterbrook and said that i believed i had the pleasure of seeing an old school fellow there indeed said mr waterbrook surprised you are too young to have been at school with mr henry spiker oh i don't mean him i repride i mean the gentleman named traddles oh i indeed said my host with much diminished interest possibly if it's really the same person said i glancing towards him it was at a place called salem house where we were together and he was an excellent fellow oh yes traddles is a good fellow returned to my host nodding his head with an air of toleration traddles is quite a good fellow it's a curious coincidence said i it is really returned to my host quite a coincidence that the traddles should be here at all as traddles was only invited this morning when the place at table intended to be occupied by mrs henry spiker's brother became vacant in consequence of his indisposition a very gentlemanly man mrs henry spiker's brother mr copperfield i murmured an ascent which was full of feeling considering that i knew nothing at all about him and i inquired what mr traddles was by profession uh traddles returned mr waterbrook is a young man reading for the bar yes he is quite a good fellow nobody's enemy but his own is he his own enemy said i sorry to hear this well return mr waterbrook piercing up his mouth and playing with his watch chain in a comfortable prosperous sort of way i should say he was one of those men who stand in their own light yes i should say he would never for example be worth five hundred pound uh traddles was recommended to me by a professional friend oh yes yes he has a kind of talent for drawing briefs and stating a case in writing plainly i'm able to throw something in traddles way in the course of the year something for him considerable oh yes yes i was much impressed by the extremely comfortable and satisfied manner in which mr waterbrook delivered himself with this little word yes every now and then there was a wonderful expression in it he completely conveyed the idea of a man who'd been born not to say with a silver spoon but with a scaling ladder and had gone on mounting all the heights of life one after another until now he looked from the top of the fortifications with the eye of a philosopher and a patron on the people down in the trenches my reflections on this theme were still in progress when dinner was announced mr waterbrook went down with hamlet's aunt mr henry spiker took mrs waterbrook agnes whom i should have liked to take myself was given to a simpering fellow with weak legs yoria traddles and i as the junior part of the company went down last how we could i was not so vexed at losing agnes as i might have been since it gave me an opportunity of making myself known to traddles on the stairs who greeted me with great fervour while yoria writhed with such understruces satisfaction and self abasement but i could gladly have pitched him over the banisters traddles and i were separated at table being billeted in two remote corners he in the glare of a red velvet lady i in the gloom of hamlet's aunt the dinner was very long and the conversation was about the aristocracy and blood mrs waterbrook repeatedly told us that if she had a weakness it was blood it occurred to me several times that we should have got on better if we had not been quite so genteel we were so exceedingly genteel that our scope was very limited a mr and mrs gulpage were of the party who had something to do at second hand at least mr gulpage had with the law business of the bank and what with the bank and what with the treasury we were as exclusive as the court circular to mend the matter hamlet's aunt had the family failing of indulging in soliloquy and held forth in a desultory manner by herself on every topic that was introduced these were few enough to be sure but as we always fell back upon blood she had as wide a field for abstract speculation as her nephew himself we might have been a party of ogres the conversation assumed such a sanguine complexion i confess i am of mrs waterbrook's opinion said mr waterbrook with his wine glass at his eye other things are all very well in their way but give me blood oh there is nothing observed hamlet's aunt so satisfactory to one there is nothing that is so much one's bow ideal of of all that sort of thing speaking generally there's some low minds not many i'm happy to believe but there are some that would prefer to do what i should call bow down before idols positively idols before service intellect and so on but these are intangible points blood is not so we see blood in a nose and we know it we meet it with a chin and we say there it is that's blood it is an actual matter of fact we pointed out it a bits of no doubt a simpering fellow with the weak legs who'd taken agnes down stated the question more decisively yet i thought oh you know juice take it said this gentleman looking round the board with an imbecile smile we can't forget blood you know we must have blood you know some young fellows you know maybe a little behind their station perhaps in point of education and behavior may go a little wrong you know and get themselves and other people into a variety of fixes and all that but juice take it it's delightful to reflect that they've got blood in them myself i'd rather at any time be knocked down by a man who'd got blood in him than i'd be picked up by a man who hadn't this sentiment as compressing the general question into a nutshell gave the utmost satisfaction and brought the gentleman to great notice until the ladies retired after that i observed that mr. galpinj and mr. henry spiker who'd had the two been very distant entered into a defensive alliance against us the common enemy and exchanged a mysterious dialogue across the table for our defeat and overthrow that affair of the first bond for four thousand five hundred pounds has not taken the course that i was expecting spiker said mr. galpinj do you mean the d of a's said mr. spiker the c of b's said mr. galpinj mr. spiker raised his eyebrows and looked much concerned when the question was referred to lord i needn't name him said mr. galpinj checking himself i understand said mr. spiker in mr. galpinj darkly nodded was referred to him his answer was money or no release lord bless my soul cried mr. spiker money or no release repeated mr. galpinj firmly the next in reversion you understand me k said mr. spiker with an onerous look k then positively refused to sign he was intended at nuke market for that purpose and he point blank refused to do it mr. spiker was so interested that he became quite stony so the matter rests at this are said mr. galpinj throwing himself back in his chair our friend waterbrook will excuse me if i forbid to explain myself generally on account of the magnitude of the interests involved mr. waterbrook was only too happy as it appeared to me to have such interests and such names even hinted at across his table he assumed an expression of gloomy intelligence i am persuaded he knew no more about the discussion than i did and highly approved of the discretion that had been observed mr. spiker after the receipt of such a confidence naturally desired to favor his friend with a confidence of his own therefore the foregoing dialogue was succeeded by another in which it was mr. galpinj's turn to be surprised and that by another in which a surprise came round to mr. spiker's turn again and so on turn and turn about all this time we the outsiders remained oppressed by the tremendous interests involved in the conversation and our host regarded us with pride as the victims of a solitary awe and astonishment i was very glad indeed to get upstairs to agnes and to talk with her in a corner and to introduce travels to her who was shy but agreeable and the same good-natured creature still as he was obliged to leave early on account of going away next morning for a month i had not nearly so much conversation with him as i could have wished but we exchanged addresses and promised ourselves the pleasure of another meeting when he should come back to town he was greatly interested to hear that i knew steerforth and spoke of him with such warmth that i made him tell agnes what he thought of him but agnes only looked at me for a while and very slightly shook her head when only i observed her as she was not among people with whom i believed she could be very much at home i was almost glad to hear that she was going away within a few days though i was sorry at the prospect of parting from her again so soon this caused me to remain until all the company were gone conversing with her and hearing her sing was such a delightful reminder to me of my happy life in the grave old house she had made so beautiful that i could have remained there half the night but having no excuse for staying any longer when the lights of mr. waterbrook's society were all snuffed out i took my leave very much against my inclination i felt then more than ever that she was my better angel and if i thought of her sweet face and plaited smile as though they had shone on me from some removed being like an angel i hope i thought no harm i have said that the company were all gone but i ought to have accepted your ryer whom i don't include in that denomination and who had never ceased to hover near us he was close behind me when i went downstairs he was close beside me when i walked away from the house slowly fitting his long skeleton fingers into the still longer fingers of a great guy forks pair of gloves it was in no disposition for a rious company but in remembrance of the entreaty agnes have made to me that i asked him if he would come home to my rooms and have some coffee oh really mr. copperfield he rejoined i beg your pardon mr. copperfield but the other comes so naturally i don't like that you should put a constraint upon yourself to ask a numble person like me to your house there is no constraint in the case said i will you come i should like to very much replied your ryer with a writhe well then come along said i i could not help being rather short with him but he appeared not to mind it we went to the nearest way without conversing much upon the road and he was so humbled in a respect of those scarecrowed gloves that he was still putting them on and seemed to have made no advance in that labor when we got to my place i laid him up the dark stairs to prevent his knocking his head against anything and really his damp cold hand felt so like a frog in mind that i was tempted to drop it and run away agnes and hospitality prevailed however and i conducted him to my far side when i lighted my candles he fell into meek transports with the room that was revealed to him and when i heated the coffee in an unassuming block tin vessel in which mrs crop delighted to prepare it chiefly i believe because it was not intended for the purpose being a shaving pot and because there was a patent invention of great price mouldering away in the pantry he professed so much emotion that i could joyfully have scolded him oh really master copperfield i mean mr copperfield said your ryer to see you waiting upon me is what i never could have expected but one way or another so many things happened to me which i could never have expected i'm sure in my umbil station that it seems to rain blessings on me ed you've heard something i'd say have a change in my expectations master copy i should say mr copperfield as he sat on my server with his long knees drawn up under his coffee cup his hat and gloves upon the ground close to him his spoon going softly round and round his shadowless red eyes which looked as if they'd had scorched their lashes off turned towards without looking at me the disagreeable dints i've formally described in his nostrils coming and going with his breath and a sneaky undulation pervading his frame from his chin to his boots i decided to my own mind that i just disliked him intensely it may be very uncomfortable to have him for a guest for i was young then and unused to disguise what i so strongly felt you've heard something i dare say they've a change in my expectations master copperfield i should say mr copperfield observe your ryer uh yes i said something ah i thought miss agnes would know of it he quietly returned i'm glad to find miss agnes knows of it oh thank you master mr copperfield i could have thrown my boot jack at him he'd lay ready on the rug for having entrapped me into the disclosure of anything concerning agnes however immaterial but i only drank my coffee what a profit you've shown yourself mr copperfield pursued your ryer dear me what a profit you've proved yourself to be don't you remember saying to me once that perhaps i should be a partner in mr wickfield's business and perhaps it might be wickfield and heap you may not be recollected but when a person is humble master copperfield a person treasured such things up i recollect talking about it said i so i certainly did not think it very likely then who who would have thought it likely mr copperfield returned your uh enthusiastically i'm sure i didn't myself i recollect saying with my own lips though that i was much too humble so i considered myself really and truly he sat with that carved grin on his face looking at the fire as i looked at him but the umblest persons master copperfield he presented resumed may be the instruments of good i'm glad to think i've been the instrument of good to mr wickfield and that i may be more so oh what a worthy man he is mr copperfield but how imprudent he has been i'm sorry to hear it said i i could not help adding rather pointedly on all accounts oh decidedly so mr copperfield replied your eye on all accounts miss agnes is above all you don't remember your own eloquent expressions master copperfield but i remember how you said one day that everybody must have maha and how i thanked you for it you forgot that i have no doubt master copperfield no said i dryly oh how glad i am you have not exclaimed your eye to think that you should be the first to kindle the sparks of ambition in my umble breast and that you've not forgotten it oh would you excuse me asking for a cup more coffee something in the emphasis he laid upon the kindling of those sparks and something in the glance he directed at me as he said it had made me start as if i'd seen him illuminated by a blaze of light recalled by his request preferred in quite another tone of voice i did the honors of the shaving pot but i did them with an unsteadiness of hand a sudden sense of being no match for him and a perplexed suspicious anxiety as to what he might be going to say next which i felt could not escape his observation he said nothing at all he stirred his coffee round and round he sipped it he felt his chin softly with his grisly hand he looked at the far he looked about the room he gasped rather than smiled at me he grived and undulated about in his differential civility he stirred and sipped again but he left the renewal of the conversation to me so mr wickfield said i at last who is worth five hundred of you or me for my life i think i could not have helped dividing that part of the sentences with an awkward jerk has been imprudent has he mr heep oh very imprudent indeed master copperfield returned uraya sighing modestly oh very much so but i wish you could be uraya if you please it's like old times well uraya said i bolting it out with some difficulty thank you he returned with further thank you master copperfield it's like the blowing of old breezes of the ringing of old bells is to hear you say uraya i beg you pardon was i making any observation about mr wickfield i suggested oh yes truly said uraya ah great imprudence master copperfield it's a topic that i wouldn't touch upon to any cel but you even to you i can only touch upon it and no more if anyone else had been in my place during the last few years by this time he would have had mr wickfield oh what a worthy man he is master copperfield too under his thumb under his thumb said uraya very slowly as he stretched out his cruel looking hand above my table and pressed his own thumb upon it until it shook and shook the room if i'd been obliged to look at him with his splay foot on mr wickfield's head i think i could scarcely have hated him more oh dear yes master copperfield he proceeded in a soft voice most remarkably contrasting with the action of his thumb which did not diminish its hard pressure in the least degree there's no doubt of it there would have been lost his grace i don't know what at all mr wickfield knows it i am the humble instrument of umpley serving him and he puts me on an eminence i hardly could have hoped to reach how thankful should i be with his face turned towards me as he finished but without looking at me he took his crooked thumb off the spot where he had planted it and slowly and thoughtfully scraped his lank jaw with it as if he was shaving himself i recollect well how indignantly my heart beat as i saw his crafty face with the appropriately red light of the fire upon it preparing for something else master copperfield he began but am i keeping you up you are not keeping me up i generally go to bed late thank you master copperfield i've risen from my humble station since first you used to address me it is true but i'm humble still i hope i never shall be otherwise an umble you will not think the worse of my umbleness if i make a little confidence to you master copperfield will you oh no said i with an effort thank you he took out his pocket handkerchief and began wiping the palms of his hands miss agnes master copperfield well uriah oh how pleasant to be called uriah spontaneously he cried and gave himself a little jerk like a convulsive fish you thought her looking very beautiful tonight master copperfield i thought her looking as she always does superior in all respects to everyone around her i returned oh thank you it's so true he cried oh thank you very much for that not at all i said loftily there is no reason why you should thank me why that master copperfield said uriah is in fact the confidence that i'm going to take the liberty of reposing humble as i am he was hands harder and looked at them and at the fire by turns umblest my mother is and lowly is our poor but honest roof has ever been the image of miss agnes i don't mind trusting you with my secret mr copperfield for i've always overflowed towards you since the first moment i had the pleasure of beholding you in a pony shea has been in my breast for years oh master copperfield we've bought a pure affection do i love the ground my agnes walks on i believe i had a delirious idea of seizing the red hot poker out of the fire and running him through with it it went from me with a shock like a ball fired from a rifle but the image of agnes outraged by so much as a thought of this red-headed animals remained in my mind when i looked at him sitting all awry as if his mean soul griped his body and it made me giddy he seemed to swell and grow before my eyes the room seemed full of the echoes of his voice and the strange feeling to which perhaps no one is quite a stranger that all this had occurred before at some indefinite time and that i knew what he was going to say next took possession of me a timely observation of the sense of power that there was in his face did more to bring back to my remembrance the entreaty of agnes in its full force than any effort i could have made i asked him with a better appearance of composure than i could have thought possible a minute before whether he had made his feelings known to agnes oh no master copperfield he returned oh dear no not to anyone but you you see i'm only just emerging from my lowly station i rest a good tune of hope on her observing how useful i am to her father for i trust to be very useful to him indeed master copperfield and how i smooth the way for him and keep him straight she's so much attached to her father master copperfield oh what a lovely thing it is in a daughter that i think she may come on his own account to be kind to me i fathomed at the depth of the rascals whole scheme and understood why he laid it bare if you'll have the goodness to keep my secret master copperfield he pursued and not in general to go against me i should take it as a particular favour you wouldn't wish to make unpleasantness i know what a friendly heart you've got but having only known me on my humble footing on my umblest i should say for i am very humble still you might unbeknown go against me rather with my agnes i call a mind you see master copperfield there's a song that says i'd crowns resigned to call her mine i hope to do it one of these days dear agnes so much too loving and too good for anyone that i could think of was it possible that she was reserved to be the wife of such a wretch as this there's no hurry of presence you know master copperfield your eye proceeded in his slimy way as i sat gazing at him with this thought in my mind my agnes is very young still a mother of me will have to work our way upwards and make a good many new arrangements before it would be quite convenient so i shall have time gradually to make a familiar with my hopes as opportunities offer why i'm so much obliged to you for this confidence oh it's such a relief you can't think to know that you understand our situation and a certain as you wouldn't wish to make unpleasantness in the family not to go against me he took the hand which i dared not withhold and having given it a damp squeeze referred to his pale-faced watch tm me he said it's past one the moment slip away so in the confidence of old times master copperfield that it's almost half past one i answered that i thought it was later not that i'd really thought so but because my conversational powers were effectually scattered dear me he said considering the house that i'm stopping at a sort of a private hotel and boarding house master copperfield near the new riverhead would have gone to bed these two hours i'm sorry i returned but there is only one bed here that i oh don't think of mentioning beds master copperfield he rejoined ecstatically drawing up one leg but would you have any objections to my laying down before the fire if it comes to that i said pray take my bed and i'll lie down before the fire his repudiation of this offer was almost shrill enough in the excess of its surprise and humility to have penetrated to the ears of mrs. krupp then sleeping i suppose in a distant chamber situated at about the level of low water mark soothed in her slumbers by the ticking of an incorrigible clock to which she always referred me when we had any little difference on the score of punctuality and which was nevertheless some three quarters of an hour too slow and had always been put right in the morning by the best authorities as no arguments i could urge in my bewildered condition had the least effect upon his modesty in inducing him to accept my bedroom i was obliged to make the best arrangements i could for his repose before the fire the mattress of the sofa which was a great deal too short for his lank figure the sofa pillars a blanket the tablecloth a clean breakfast cloth and a great coat made him a bed and covering for which he was more than thankful having lent him a nightcap which he put on at once and in which he made such an awful figure that i've never worn one since i left him to his rest i never shall forget that night i never shall forget how i turned and tumbled how i worried myself with thinking about agnes and this creature how i considered what could i do and what i ought to do how i could come to no other conclusion than that the next best course for her piece was to do nothing and to keep to myself what i had heard if i went to sleep for a few moments the image of agnes with her tender eyes and of her father looking fondly on her as i had so often seen him look arose before me with appealing faces and filled me with vague terrors when i awoke the recollection that your eye was lying in the next room sat heavy on me like a waking nightmare and oppressed me with a leaden dread as if i'd had some meaner quality of devil for a lodger the poker got into my dosing thoughts besides and wouldn't come out i thought between sleeping and waking that it was still red hot and i'd snatched it out of the fire and run him through the body i was so haunted at last by the idea that i knew there was nothing in it that i stole into the next room to look at him there i saw him lying on his back with his legs extending to i don't know where gurgling's taking place in his throat stoppages in his nose and his mouth open like a post office he was so much worse in reality than in my distempered fancy that afterwards i was attracted to him in very repulsion and could not help wandering in and out every half hour or so and taking another look at him still the long long night seemed heavy and hopeless as ever and no promise of day was in the murky sky when i saw him going downstairs early in the morning for thank heaven he would not stay to breakfast it appeared to me as if the night was going away in his person when i went out to the commons i charged mrs. krupp with particular directions to leave the windows open that my sitting-room might be aired and purged of his presence end of chapter 25 recording by simon evers