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Charles Dickens
Chapter 11
Charles Dickens
 
 
1       I know enough of the world now, to have almost lost the capacity of
2  being much surprised by anything; but it is matter of some surprise
3  to me, even now, that I can have been so easily thrown away at such
4  an age. A child of excellent abilities, and with strong powers of
5  observation, quick, eager, delicate, and soon hurt bodily or
6  mentally, it seems wonderful to me that nobody should have made any
7  sign in my behalf. But none was made; and I became, at ten years
8  old, a little labouring hind in the service of Murdstone and
9  Grinby.

10       Murdstone and Grinby's warehouse was at the waterside. It was down
11  in Blackfriars. Modern improvements have altered the place; but it
12  was the last house at the bottom of a narrow street, curving down
13  hill to the river, with some stairs at the end, where people took
14  boat. It was a crazy old house with a wharf of its own, abutting
15  on the water when the tide was in, and on the mud when the tide was
16  out, and literally overrun with rats. Its panelled rooms,
17  discoloured with the dirt and smoke of a hundred years, I dare say;
18  its decaying floors and staircase; the squeaking and scuffling of
19  the old grey rats down in the cellars; and the dirt and rottenness
20  of the place; are things, not of many years ago, in my mind, but of
21  the present instant. They are all before me, just as they were in
22  the evil hour when I went among them for the first time, with my
23  trembling hand in Mr. Quinion's.

24       Murdstone and Grinby's trade was among a good many kinds of people,
25  but an important branch of it was the supply of wines and spirits
26  to certain packet ships. I forget now where they chiefly went, but
27  I think there were some among them that made voyages both to the
28  East and West Indies. I know that a great many empty bottles were
29  one of the consequences of this traffic, and that certain men and
30  boys were employed to examine them against the light, and reject
31  those that were flawed, and to rinse and wash them. When the empty
32  bottles ran short, there were labels to be pasted on full ones, or
33  corks to be fitted to them, or seals to be put upon the corks, or
34  finished bottles to be packed in casks. All this work was my work,
35  and of the boys employed upon it I was one.

36       There were three or four of us, counting me. My working place was
37  established in a corner of the warehouse, where Mr. Quinion could
38  see me, when he chose to stand up on the bottom rail of his stool
39  in the counting-house, and look at me through a window above the
40  desk. Hither, on the first morning of my so auspiciously beginning
41  life on my own account, the oldest of the regular boys was summoned
42  to show me my business. His name was Mick Walker, and he wore a
43  ragged apron and a paper cap. He informed me that his father was
44  a bargeman, and walked, in a black velvet head-dress, in the Lord
45  Mayor's Show. He also informed me that our principal associate
46  would be another boy whom he introduced by the - to me -
47  extraordinary name of Mealy Potatoes. I discovered, however, that
48  this youth had not been christened by that name, but that it had
49  been bestowed upon him in the warehouse, on account of his
50  complexion, which was pale or mealy. Mealy's father was a
51  waterman, who had the additional distinction of being a fireman,
52  and was engaged as such at one of the large theatres; where some
53  young relation of Mealy's - I think his little sister - did Imps in
54  the Pantomimes.

55       No words can express the secret agony of my soul as I sunk into
56  this companionship; compared these henceforth everyday associates
57  with those of my happier childhood - not to say with Steerforth,
58  Traddles, and the rest of those boys; and felt my hopes of growing
59  up to be a learned and distinguished man, crushed in my bosom. The
60  deep remembrance of the sense I had, of being utterly without hope
61  now; of the shame I felt in my position; of the misery it was to my
62  young heart to believe that day by day what I had learned, and
63  thought, and delighted in, and raised my fancy and my emulation up
64  by, would pass away from me, little by little, never to be brought
65  back any more; cannot be written. As often as Mick Walker went
66  away in the course of that forenoon, I mingled my tears with the
67  water in which I was washing the bottles; and sobbed as if there
68  were a flaw in my own breast, and it were in danger of bursting.

69       The counting-house clock was at half past twelve, and there was
70  general preparation for going to dinner, when Mr. Quinion tapped at
71  the counting-house window, and beckoned to me to go in. I went in,
72  and found there a stoutish, middle-aged person, in a brown surtout
73  and black tights and shoes, with no more hair upon his head (which
74  was a large one, and very shining) than there is upon an egg, and
75  with a very extensive face, which he turned full upon me. His
76  clothes were shabby, but he had an imposing shirt-collar on. He
77  carried a jaunty sort of a stick, with a large pair of rusty
78  tassels to it; and a quizzing-glass hung outside his coat, - for
79  ornament, I afterwards found, as he very seldom looked through it,
80  and couldn't see anything when he did.

81       'This,' said Mr. Quinion, in allusion to myself, 'is he.'

82       'This,' said the stranger, with a certain condescending roll in his
83  voice, and a certain indescribable air of doing something genteel,
84  which impressed me very much, 'is Master Copperfield. I hope I see
85  you well, sir?'

86       I said I was very well, and hoped he was. I was sufficiently ill
87  at ease, Heaven knows; but it was not in my nature to complain much
88  at that time of my life, so I said I was very well, and hoped he
89  was.

90       'I am,' said the stranger, 'thank Heaven, quite well. I have
91  received a letter from Mr. Murdstone, in which he mentions that he
92  would desire me to receive into an apartment in the rear of my
93  house, which is at present unoccupied - and is, in short, to be let
94  as a - in short,' said the stranger, with a smile and in a burst of
95  confidence, 'as a bedroom - the young beginner whom I have now the
96  pleasure to -' and the stranger waved his hand, and settled his
97  chin in his shirt-collar.

98       'This is Mr. Micawber,' said Mr. Quinion to me.

99       'Ahem!' said the stranger, 'that is my name.'

100       'Mr. Micawber,' said Mr. Quinion, 'is known to Mr. Murdstone. He
101  takes orders for us on commission, when he can get any. He has
102  been written to by Mr. Murdstone, on the subject of your lodgings,
103  and he will receive you as a lodger.'

104       'My address,' said Mr. Micawber, 'is Windsor Terrace, City Road.
105  I - in short,' said Mr. Micawber, with the same genteel air, and in
106  another burst of confidence - 'I live there.'

107       I made him a bow.

108       'Under the impression,' said Mr. Micawber, 'that your
109  peregrinations in this metropolis have not as yet been extensive,
110  and that you might have some difficulty in penetrating the arcana
111  of the Modern Babylon in the direction of the City Road, - in
112  short,' said Mr. Micawber, in another burst of confidence, 'that
113  you might lose yourself - I shall be happy to call this evening,
114  and install you in the knowledge of the nearest way.'

115       I thanked him with all my heart, for it was friendly in him to
116  offer to take that trouble.

117       'At what hour,' said Mr. Micawber, 'shall I -'

118       'At about eight,' said Mr. Quinion.

119       'At about eight,' said Mr. Micawber. 'I beg to wish you good day,
120  Mr. Quinion. I will intrude no longer.'

121       So he put on his hat, and went out with his cane under his arm:
122  very upright, and humming a tune when he was clear of the
123  counting-house.

124       Mr. Quinion then formally engaged me to be as useful as I could in
125  the warehouse of Murdstone and Grinby, at a salary, I think, of six
126  shillings a week. I am not clear whether it was six or seven. I
127  am inclined to believe, from my uncertainty on this head, that it
128  was six at first and seven afterwards. He paid me a week down
129  (from his own pocket, I believe), and I gave Mealy sixpence out of
130  it to get my trunk carried to Windsor Terrace that night: it being
131  too heavy for my strength, small as it was. I paid sixpence more
132  for my dinner, which was a meat pie and a turn at a neighbouring
133  pump; and passed the hour which was allowed for that meal, in
134  walking about the streets.

135       At the appointed time in the evening, Mr. Micawber reappeared. I
136  washed my hands and face, to do the greater honour to his
137  gentility, and we walked to our house, as I suppose I must now call
138  it, together; Mr. Micawber impressing the name of streets, and the
139  shapes of corner houses upon me, as we went along, that I might
140  find my way back, easily, in the morning.

141       Arrived at this house in Windsor Terrace (which I noticed was
142  shabby like himself, but also, like himself, made all the show it
143  could), he presented me to Mrs. Micawber, a thin and faded lady,
144  not at all young, who was sitting in the parlour (the first floor
145  was altogether unfurnished, and the blinds were kept down to delude
146  the neighbours), with a baby at her breast. This baby was one of
147  twins; and I may remark here that I hardly ever, in all my
148  experience of the family, saw both the twins detached from Mrs.
149  Micawber at the same time. One of them was always taking
150  refreshment.

151       There were two other children; Master Micawber, aged about four,
152  and Miss Micawber, aged about three. These, and a
153  dark-complexioned young woman, with a habit of snorting, who was
154  servant to the family, and informed me, before half an hour had
155  expired, that she was 'a Orfling', and came from St. Luke's
156  workhouse, in the neighbourhood, completed the establishment. My
157  room was at the top of the house, at the back: a close chamber;
158  stencilled all over with an ornament which my young imagination
159  represented as a blue muffin; and very scantily furnished.

160       'I never thought,' said Mrs. Micawber, when she came up, twin and
161  all, to show me the apartment, and sat down to take breath, 'before
162  I was married, when I lived with papa and mama, that I should ever
163  find it necessary to take a lodger. But Mr. Micawber being in
164  difficulties, all considerations of private feeling must give way.'

165       I said: 'Yes, ma'am.'

166       'Mr. Micawber's difficulties are almost overwhelming just at
167  present,' said Mrs. Micawber; 'and whether it is possible to bring
168  him through them, I don't know. When I lived at home with papa and
169  mama, I really should have hardly understood what the word meant,
170  in the sense in which I now employ it, but experientia does it, -
171  as papa used to say.'

172       I cannot satisfy myself whether she told me that Mr. Micawber had
173  been an officer in the Marines, or whether I have imagined it. I
174  only know that I believe to this hour that he WAS in the Marines
175  once upon a time, without knowing why. He was a sort of town
176  traveller for a number of miscellaneous houses, now; but made
177  little or nothing of it, I am afraid.

178       'If Mr. Micawber's creditors will not give him time,' said Mrs.
179  Micawber, 'they must take the consequences; and the sooner they
180  bring it to an issue the better. Blood cannot be obtained from a
181  stone, neither can anything on account be obtained at present (not
182  to mention law expenses) from Mr. Micawber.'

183       I never can quite understand whether my precocious self-dependence
184  confused Mrs. Micawber in reference to my age, or whether she was
185  so full of the subject that she would have talked about it to the
186  very twins if there had been nobody else to communicate with, but
187  this was the strain in which she began, and she went on accordingly
188  all the time I knew her.

189       Poor Mrs. Micawber! She said she had tried to exert herself, and
190  so, I have no doubt, she had. The centre of the street door was
191  perfectly covered with a great brass-plate, on which was engraved
192  'Mrs. Micawber's Boarding Establishment for Young Ladies': but I
193  never found that any young lady had ever been to school there; or
194  that any young lady ever came, or proposed to come; or that the
195  least preparation was ever made to receive any young lady. The
196  only visitors I ever saw, or heard of, were creditors. THEY used
197  to come at all hours, and some of them were quite ferocious. One
198  dirty-faced man, I think he was a boot-maker, used to edge himself
199  into the passage as early as seven o'clock in the morning, and call
200  up the stairs to Mr. Micawber - 'Come! You ain't out yet, you
201  know. Pay us, will you? Don't hide, you know; that's mean. I
202  wouldn't be mean if I was you. Pay us, will you? You just pay us,
203  d'ye hear? Come!' Receiving no answer to these taunts, he would
204  mount in his wrath to the words 'swindlers' and 'robbers'; and
205  these being ineffectual too, would sometimes go to the extremity of
206  crossing the street, and roaring up at the windows of the second
207  floor, where he knew Mr. Micawber was. At these times, Mr.
208  Micawber would be transported with grief and mortification, even to
209  the length (as I was once made aware by a scream from his wife) of
210  making motions at himself with a razor; but within half-an-hour
211  afterwards, he would polish up his shoes with extraordinary pains,
212  and go out, humming a tune with a greater air of gentility than
213  ever. Mrs. Micawber was quite as elastic. I have known her to be
214  thrown into fainting fits by the king's taxes at three o'clock, and
215  to eat lamb chops, breaded, and drink warm ale (paid for with two
216  tea-spoons that had gone to the pawnbroker's) at four. On one
217  occasion, when an execution had just been put in, coming home
218  through some chance as early as six o'clock, I saw her lying (of
219  course with a twin) under the grate in a swoon, with her hair all
220  torn about her face; but I never knew her more cheerful than she
221  was, that very same night, over a veal cutlet before the kitchen
222  fire, telling me stories about her papa and mama, and the company
223  they used to keep.

224       In this house, and with this family, I passed my leisure time. My
225  own exclusive breakfast of a penny loaf and a pennyworth of milk,
226  I provided myself. I kept another small loaf, and a modicum of
227  cheese, on a particular shelf of a particular cupboard, to make my
228  supper on when I came back at night. This made a hole in the six
229  or seven shillings, I know well; and I was out at the warehouse all
230  day, and had to support myself on that money all the week. From
231  Monday morning until Saturday night, I had no advice, no counsel,
232  no encouragement, no consolation, no assistance, no support, of any
233  kind, from anyone, that I can call to mind, as I hope to go to
234  heaven!

235       I was so young and childish, and so little qualified - how could I
236  be otherwise? - to undertake the whole charge of my own existence,
237  that often, in going to Murdstone and Grinby's, of a morning, I
238  could not resist the stale pastry put out for sale at half-price at
239  the pastrycooks' doors, and spent in that the money I should have
240  kept for my dinner. Then, I went without my dinner, or bought a
241  roll or a slice of pudding. I remember two pudding shops, between
242  which I was divided, according to my finances. One was in a court
243  close to St. Martin's Church - at the back of the church, - which
244  is now removed altogether. The pudding at that shop was made of
245  currants, and was rather a special pudding, but was dear,
246  twopennyworth not being larger than a pennyworth of more ordinary
247  pudding. A good shop for the latter was in the Strand - somewhere
248  in that part which has been rebuilt since. It was a stout pale
249  pudding, heavy and flabby, and with great flat raisins in it, stuck
250  in whole at wide distances apart. It came up hot at about my time
251  every day, and many a day did I dine off it. When I dined
252  regularly and handsomely, I had a saveloy and a penny loaf, or a
253  fourpenny plate of red beef from a cook's shop; or a plate of bread
254  and cheese and a glass of beer, from a miserable old public-house
255  opposite our place of business, called the Lion, or the Lion and
256  something else that I have forgotten. Once, I remember carrying my
257  own bread (which I had brought from home in the morning) under my
258  arm, wrapped in a piece of paper, like a book, and going to a
259  famous alamode beef-house near Drury Lane, and ordering a 'small
260  plate' of that delicacy to eat with it. What the waiter thought of
261  such a strange little apparition coming in all alone, I don't know;
262  but I can see him now, staring at me as I ate my dinner, and
263  bringing up the other waiter to look. I gave him a halfpenny for
264  himself, and I wish he hadn't taken it.

265       We had half-an-hour, I think, for tea. When I had money enough, I
266  used to get half-a-pint of ready-made coffee and a slice of bread
267  and butter. When I had none, I used to look at a venison shop in
268  Fleet Street; or I have strolled, at such a time, as far as Covent
269  Garden Market, and stared at the pineapples. I was fond of
270  wandering about the Adelphi, because it was a mysterious place,
271  with those dark arches. I see myself emerging one evening from
272  some of these arches, on a little public-house close to the river,
273  with an open space before it, where some coal-heavers were dancing;
274  to look at whom I sat down upon a bench. I wonder what they
275  thought of me!

276       I was such a child, and so little, that frequently when I went into
277  the bar of a strange public-house for a glass of ale or porter, to
278  moisten what I had had for dinner, they were afraid to give it me.
279  I remember one hot evening I went into the bar of a public-house,
280  and said to the landlord:
281  'What is your best - your very best - ale a glass?' For it was a
282  special occasion. I don't know what. It may have been my
283  birthday.

284       'Twopence-halfpenny,' says the landlord, 'is the price of the
285  Genuine Stunning ale.'

286       'Then,' says I, producing the money, 'just draw me a glass of the
287  Genuine Stunning, if you please, with a good head to it.'

288       The landlord looked at me in return over the bar, from head to
289  foot, with a strange smile on his face; and instead of drawing the
290  beer, looked round the screen and said something to his wife. She
291  came out from behind it, with her work in her hand, and joined him
292  in surveying me. Here we stand, all three, before me now. The
293  landlord in his shirt-sleeves, leaning against the bar
294  window-frame; his wife looking over the little half-door; and I, in
295  some confusion, looking up at them from outside the partition.
296  They asked me a good many questions; as, what my name was, how old
297  I was, where I lived, how I was employed, and how I came there. To
298  all of which, that I might commit nobody, I invented, I am afraid,
299  appropriate answers. They served me with the ale, though I suspect
300  it was not the Genuine Stunning; and the landlord's wife, opening
301  the little half-door of the bar, and bending down, gave me my money
302  back, and gave me a kiss that was half admiring and half
303  compassionate, but all womanly and good, I am sure.

304       I know I do not exaggerate, unconsciously and unintentionally, the
305  scantiness of my resources or the difficulties of my life. I know
306  that if a shilling were given me by Mr. Quinion at any time, I
307  spent it in a dinner or a tea. I know that I worked, from morning
308  until night, with common men and boys, a shabby child. I know that
309  I lounged about the streets, insufficiently and unsatisfactorily
310  fed. I know that, but for the mercy of God, I might easily have
311  been, for any care that was taken of me, a little robber or a
312  little vagabond.

313       Yet I held some station at Murdstone and Grinby's too. Besides
314  that Mr. Quinion did what a careless man so occupied, and dealing
315  with a thing so anomalous, could, to treat me as one upon a
316  different footing from the rest, I never said, to man or boy, how
317  it was that I came to be there, or gave the least indication of
318  being sorry that I was there. That I suffered in secret, and that
319  I suffered exquisitely, no one ever knew but I. How much I
320  suffered, it is, as I have said already, utterly beyond my power to
321  tell. But I kept my own counsel, and I did my work. I knew from
322  the first, that, if I could not do my work as well as any of the
323  rest, I could not hold myself above slight and contempt. I soon
324  became at least as expeditious and as skilful as either of the
325  other boys. Though perfectly familiar with them, my conduct and
326  manner were different enough from theirs to place a space between
327  us. They and the men generally spoke of me as 'the little gent',
328  or 'the young Suffolker.' A certain man named Gregory, who was
329  foreman of the packers, and another named Tipp, who was the carman,
330  and wore a red jacket, used to address me sometimes as 'David': but
331  I think it was mostly when we were very confidential, and when I
332  had made some efforts to entertain them, over our work, with some
333  results of the old readings; which were fast perishing out of my
334  remembrance. Mealy Potatoes uprose once, and rebelled against my
335  being so distinguished; but Mick Walker settled him in no time.

336       My rescue from this kind of existence I considered quite hopeless,
337  and abandoned, as such, altogether. I am solemnly convinced that
338  I never for one hour was reconciled to it, or was otherwise than
339  miserably unhappy; but I bore it; and even to Peggotty, partly for
340  the love of her and partly for shame, never in any letter (though
341  many passed between us) revealed the truth.

342       Mr. Micawber's difficulties were an addition to the distressed
343  state of my mind. In my forlorn state I became quite attached to
344  the family, and used to walk about, busy with Mrs. Micawber's
345  calculations of ways and means, and heavy with the weight of Mr.
346  Micawber's debts. On a Saturday night, which was my grand treat,
347  - partly because it was a great thing to walk home with six or
348  seven shillings in my pocket, looking into the shops and thinking
349  what such a sum would buy, and partly because I went home early, -
350  Mrs. Micawber would make the most heart-rending confidences to me;
351  also on a Sunday morning, when I mixed the portion of tea or coffee
352  I had bought over-night, in a little shaving-pot, and sat late at
353  my breakfast. It was nothing at all unusual for Mr. Micawber to
354  sob violently at the beginning of one of these Saturday night
355  conversations, and sing about jack's delight being his lovely Nan,
356  towards the end of it. I have known him come home to supper with
357  a flood of tears, and a declaration that nothing was now left but
358  a jail; and go to bed making a calculation of the expense of
359  putting bow-windows to the house, 'in case anything turned up',
360  which was his favourite expression. And Mrs. Micawber was just the
361  same.

362       A curious equality of friendship, originating, I suppose, in our
363  respective circumstances, sprung up between me and these people,
364  notwithstanding the ludicrous disparity in our years. But I never
365  allowed myself to be prevailed upon to accept any invitation to eat
366  and drink with them out of their stock (knowing that they got on
367  badly with the butcher and baker, and had often not too much for
368  themselves), until Mrs. Micawber took me into her entire
369  confidence. This she did one evening as follows:

370       'Master Copperfield,' said Mrs. Micawber, 'I make no stranger of
371  you, and therefore do not hesitate to say that Mr. Micawber's
372  difficulties are coming to a crisis.'

373       It made me very miserable to hear it, and I looked at Mrs.
374  Micawber's red eyes with the utmost sympathy.

375       'With the exception of the heel of a Dutch cheese - which is not
376  adapted to the wants of a young family' - said Mrs. Micawber,
377  'there is really not a scrap of anything in the larder. I was
378  accustomed to speak of the larder when I lived with papa and mama,
379  and I use the word almost unconsciously. What I mean to express
380  is, that there is nothing to eat in the house.'

381       'Dear me!' I said, in great concern.

382       I had two or three shillings of my week's money in my pocket - from
383  which I presume that it must have been on a Wednesday night when we
384  held this conversation - and I hastily produced them, and with
385  heartfelt emotion begged Mrs. Micawber to accept of them as a loan.
386  But that lady, kissing me, and making me put them back in my
387  pocket, replied that she couldn't think of it.

388       'No, my dear Master Copperfield,' said she, 'far be it from my
389  thoughts! But you have a discretion beyond your years, and can
390  render me another kind of service, if you will; and a service I
391  will thankfully accept of.'

392       I begged Mrs. Micawber to name it.

393       'I have parted with the plate myself,' said Mrs. Micawber. 'Six
394  tea, two salt, and a pair of sugars, I have at different times
395  borrowed money on, in secret, with my own hands. But the twins are
396  a great tie; and to me, with my recollections, of papa and mama,
397  these transactions are very painful. There are still a few trifles
398  that we could part with. Mr. Micawber's feelings would never allow
399  him to dispose of them; and Clickett' - this was the girl from the
400  workhouse - 'being of a vulgar mind, would take painful liberties
401  if so much confidence was reposed in her. Master Copperfield, if
402  I might ask you -'

403       I understood Mrs. Micawber now, and begged her to make use of me to
404  any extent. I began to dispose of the more portable articles of
405  property that very evening; and went out on a similar expedition
406  almost every morning, before I went to Murdstone and Grinby's.

407       Mr. Micawber had a few books on a little chiffonier, which he
408  called the library; and those went first. I carried them, one
409  after another, to a bookstall in the City Road - one part of which,
410  near our house, was almost all bookstalls and bird shops then - and
411  sold them for whatever they would bring. The keeper of this
412  bookstall, who lived in a little house behind it, used to get tipsy
413  every night, and to be violently scolded by his wife every morning.
414  More than once, when I went there early, I had audience of him in
415  a turn-up bedstead, with a cut in his forehead or a black eye,
416  bearing witness to his excesses over-night (I am afraid he was
417  quarrelsome in his drink), and he, with a shaking hand,
418  endeavouring to find the needful shillings in one or other of the
419  pockets of his clothes, which lay upon the floor, while his wife,
420  with a baby in her arms and her shoes down at heel, never left off
421  rating him. Sometimes he had lost his money, and then he would ask
422  me to call again; but his wife had always got some - had taken his,
423  I dare say, while he was drunk - and secretly completed the bargain
424  on the stairs, as we went down together.
425  At the pawnbroker's shop, too, I began to be very well known. The
426  principal gentleman who officiated behind the counter, took a good
427  deal of notice of me; and often got me, I recollect, to decline a
428  Latin noun or adjective, or to conjugate a Latin verb, in his ear,
429  while he transacted my business. After all these occasions Mrs.
430  Micawber made a little treat, which was generally a supper; and
431  there was a peculiar relish in these meals which I well remember.

432       At last Mr. Micawber's difficulties came to a crisis, and he was
433  arrested early one morning, and carried over to the King's Bench
434  Prison in the Borough. He told me, as he went out of the house,
435  that the God of day had now gone down upon him - and I really
436  thought his heart was broken and mine too. But I heard,
437  afterwards, that he was seen to play a lively game at skittles,
438  before noon.

439       On the first Sunday after he was taken there, I was to go and see
440  him, and have dinner with him. I was to ask my way to such a
441  place, and just short of that place I should see such another
442  place, and just short of that I should see a yard, which I was to
443  cross, and keep straight on until I saw a turnkey. All this I did;
444  and when at last I did see a turnkey (poor little fellow that I
445  was!), and thought how, when Roderick Random was in a debtors'
446  prison, there was a man there with nothing on him but an old rug,
447  the turnkey swam before my dimmed eyes and my beating heart.

448       Mr. Micawber was waiting for me within the gate, and we went up to
449  his room (top story but one), and cried very much. He solemnly
450  conjured me, I remember, to take warning by his fate; and to
451  observe that if a man had twenty pounds a-year for his income, and
452  spent nineteen pounds nineteen shillings and sixpence, he would be
453  happy, but that if he spent twenty pounds one he would be
454  miserable. After which he borrowed a shilling of me for porter,
455  gave me a written order on Mrs. Micawber for the amount, and put
456  away his pocket-handkerchief, and cheered up.

457       We sat before a little fire, with two bricks put within the rusted
458  grate, one on each side, to prevent its burning too many coals;
459  until another debtor, who shared the room with Mr. Micawber, came
460  in from the bakehouse with the loin of mutton which was our
461  joint-stock repast. Then I was sent up to 'Captain Hopkins' in the
462  room overhead, with Mr. Micawber's compliments, and I was his young
463  friend, and would Captain Hopkins lend me a knife and fork.

464       Captain Hopkins lent me the knife and fork, with his compliments to
465  Mr. Micawber. There was a very dirty lady in his little room, and
466  two wan girls, his daughters, with shock heads of hair. I thought
467  it was better to borrow Captain Hopkins's knife and fork, than
468  Captain Hopkins's comb. The Captain himself was in the last
469  extremity of shabbiness, with large whiskers, and an old, old brown
470  great-coat with no other coat below it. I saw his bed rolled up in
471  a corner; and what plates and dishes and pots he had, on a shelf;
472  and I divined (God knows how) that though the two girls with the
473  shock heads of hair were Captain Hopkins's children, the dirty lady
474  was not married to Captain Hopkins. My timid station on his
475  threshold was not occupied more than a couple of minutes at most;
476  but I came down again with all this in my knowledge, as surely as
477  the knife and fork were in my hand.

478       There was something gipsy-like and agreeable in the dinner, after
479  all. I took back Captain Hopkins's knife and fork early in the
480  afternoon, and went home to comfort Mrs. Micawber with an account
481  of my visit. She fainted when she saw me return, and made a little
482  jug of egg-hot afterwards to console us while we talked it over.

483       I don't know how the household furniture came to be sold for the
484  family benefit, or who sold it, except that I did not. Sold it
485  was, however, and carried away in a van; except the bed, a few
486  chairs, and the kitchen table. With these possessions we encamped,
487  as it were, in the two parlours of the emptied house in Windsor
488  Terrace; Mrs. Micawber, the children, the Orfling, and myself; and
489  lived in those rooms night and day. I have no idea for how long,
490  though it seems to me for a long time. At last Mrs. Micawber
491  resolved to move into the prison, where Mr. Micawber had now
492  secured a room to himself. So I took the key of the house to the
493  landlord, who was very glad to get it; and the beds were sent over
494  to the King's Bench, except mine, for which a little room was hired
495  outside the walls in the neighbourhood of that Institution, very
496  much to my satisfaction, since the Micawbers and I had become too
497  used to one another, in our troubles, to part. The Orfling was
498  likewise accommodated with an inexpensive lodging in the same
499  neighbourhood. Mine was a quiet back-garret with a sloping roof,
500  commanding a pleasant prospect of a timberyard; and when I took
501  possession of it, with the reflection that Mr. Micawber's troubles
502  had come to a crisis at last, I thought it quite a paradise.

503       All this time I was working at Murdstone and Grinby's in the same
504  common way, and with the same common companions, and with the same
505  sense of unmerited degradation as at first. But I never, happily
506  for me no doubt, made a single acquaintance, or spoke to any of the
507  many boys whom I saw daily in going to the warehouse, in coming
508  from it, and in prowling about the streets at meal-times. I led
509  the same secretly unhappy life; but I led it in the same lonely,
510  self-reliant manner. The only changes I am conscious of are,
511  firstly, that I had grown more shabby, and secondly, that I was now
512  relieved of much of the weight of Mr. and Mrs. Micawber's cares;
513  for some relatives or friends had engaged to help them at their
514  present pass, and they lived more comfortably in the prison than
515  they had lived for a long while out of it. I used to breakfast
516  with them now, in virtue of some arrangement, of which I have
517  forgotten the details. I forget, too, at what hour the gates were
518  opened in the morning, admitting of my going in; but I know that I
519  was often up at six o'clock, and that my favourite lounging-place
520  in the interval was old London Bridge, where I was wont to sit in
521  one of the stone recesses, watching the people going by, or to look
522  over the balustrades at the sun shining in the water, and lighting
523  up the golden flame on the top of the Monument. The Orfling met me
524  here sometimes, to be told some astonishing fictions respecting the
525  wharves and the Tower; of which I can say no more than that I hope
526  I believed them myself. In the evening I used to go back to the
527  prison, and walk up and down the parade with Mr. Micawber; or play
528  casino with Mrs. Micawber, and hear reminiscences of her papa and
529  mama. Whether Mr. Murdstone knew where I was, I am unable to say.
530  I never told them at Murdstone and Grinby's.

531       Mr. Micawber's affairs, although past their crisis, were very much
532  involved by reason of a certain 'Deed', of which I used to hear a
533  great deal, and which I suppose, now, to have been some former
534  composition with his creditors, though I was so far from being
535  clear about it then, that I am conscious of having confounded it
536  with those demoniacal parchments which are held to have, once upon
537  a time, obtained to a great extent in Germany. At last this
538  document appeared to be got out of the way, somehow; at all events
539  it ceased to be the rock-ahead it had been; and Mrs. Micawber
540  informed me that 'her family' had decided that Mr. Micawber should
541  apply for his release under the Insolvent Debtors Act, which would
542  set him free, she expected, in about six weeks.

543       'And then,' said Mr. Micawber, who was present, 'I have no doubt I
544  shall, please Heaven, begin to be beforehand with the world, and to
545  live in a perfectly new manner, if - in short, if anything turns
546  up.'

547       By way of going in for anything that might be on the cards, I call
548  to mind that Mr. Micawber, about this time, composed a petition to
549  the House of Commons, praying for an alteration in the law of
550  imprisonment for debt. I set down this remembrance here, because
551  it is an instance to myself of the manner in which I fitted my old
552  books to my altered life, and made stories for myself, out of the
553  streets, and out of men and women; and how some main points in the
554  character I shall unconsciously develop, I suppose, in writing my
555  life, were gradually forming all this while.

556       There was a club in the prison, in which Mr. Micawber, as a
557  gentleman, was a great authority. Mr. Micawber had stated his idea
558  of this petition to the club, and the club had strongly approved of
559  the same. Wherefore Mr. Micawber (who was a thoroughly
560  good-natured man, and as active a creature about everything but his
561  own affairs as ever existed, and never so happy as when he was busy
562  about something that could never be of any profit to him) set to
563  work at the petition, invented it, engrossed it on an immense sheet
564  of paper, spread it out on a table, and appointed a time for all
565  the club, and all within the walls if they chose, to come up to his
566  room and sign it.

567       When I heard of this approaching ceremony, I was so anxious to see
568  them all come in, one after another, though I knew the greater part
569  of them already, and they me, that I got an hour's leave of absence
570  from Murdstone and Grinby's, and established myself in a corner for
571  that purpose. As many of the principal members of the club as
572  could be got into the small room without filling it, supported Mr.
573  Micawber in front of the petition, while my old friend Captain
574  Hopkins (who had washed himself, to do honour to so solemn an
575  occasion) stationed himself close to it, to read it to all who were
576  unacquainted with its contents. The door was then thrown open, and
577  the general population began to come in, in a long file: several
578  waiting outside, while one entered, affixed his signature, and went
579  out. To everybody in succession, Captain Hopkins said: 'Have you
580  read it?' - 'No.' - 'Would you like to hear it read?' If he
581  weakly showed the least disposition to hear it, Captain Hopkins, in
582  a loud sonorous voice, gave him every word of it. The Captain
583  would have read it twenty thousand times, if twenty thousand people
584  would have heard him, one by one. I remember a certain luscious
585  roll he gave to such phrases as 'The people's representatives in
586  Parliament assembled,' 'Your petitioners therefore humbly approach
587  your honourable house,' 'His gracious Majesty's unfortunate
588  subjects,' as if the words were something real in his mouth, and
589  delicious to taste; Mr. Micawber, meanwhile, listening with a
590  little of an author's vanity, and contemplating (not severely) the
591  spikes on the opposite wall.

592       As I walked to and fro daily between Southwark and Blackfriars, and
593  lounged about at meal-times in obscure streets, the stones of which
594  may, for anything I know, be worn at this moment by my childish
595  feet, I wonder how many of these people were wanting in the crowd
596  that used to come filing before me in review again, to the echo of
597  Captain Hopkins's voice! When my thoughts go back, now, to that
598  slow agony of my youth, I wonder how much of the histories I
599  invented for such people hangs like a mist of fancy over
600  well-remembered facts! When I tread the old ground, I do not
601  wonder that I seem to see and pity, going on before me, an innocent
602  romantic boy, making his imaginative world out of such strange
603  experiences and sordid things!

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