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| 1 | In due time, Mr. Micawber's petition was ripe for hearing; and that
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| 2 | gentleman was ordered to be discharged under the Act, to my great
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| 3 | joy. His creditors were not implacable; and Mrs. Micawber informed
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| 4 | me that even the revengeful boot-maker had declared in open court
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| 5 | that he bore him no malice, but that when money was owing to him he
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| 6 | liked to be paid. He said he thought it was human nature.
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| 7 | M r Micawber returned to the King's Bench when his case was over,
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| 8 | as some fees were to be settled, and some formalities observed,
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| 9 | before he could be actually released. The club received him with
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| 10 | transport, and held an harmonic meeting that evening in his honour;
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| 11 | while Mrs. Micawber and I had a lamb's fry in private, surrounded
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| 12 | by the sleeping family.
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| 13 | 'On such an occasion I will give you, Master Copperfield,' said
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| 14 | Mrs. Micawber, 'in a little more flip,' for we had been having some
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| 15 | already, 'the memory of my papa and mama.'
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| 16 | 'Are they dead, ma'am?' I inquired, after drinking the toast in a
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| 17 | wine-glass.
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| 18 | 'My mama departed this life,' said Mrs. Micawber, 'before Mr.
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| 19 | Micawber's difficulties commenced, or at least before they became
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| 20 | pressing. My papa lived to bail Mr. Micawber several times, and
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| 21 | then expired, regretted by a numerous circle.'
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| 22 | Mrs. Micawber shook her head, and dropped a pious tear upon the
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| 23 | twin who happened to be in hand.
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| 24 | As I could hardly hope for a more favourable opportunity of putting
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| 25 | a question in which I had a near interest, I said to Mrs. Micawber:
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| 26 | 'May I ask, ma'am, what you and Mr. Micawber intend to do, now that
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| 27 | Mr. Micawber is out of his difficulties, and at liberty? Have you
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| 28 | settled yet?'
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| 29 | 'My family,' said Mrs. Micawber, who always said those two words
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| 30 | with an air, though I never could discover who came under the
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| 31 | denomination, 'my family are of opinion that Mr. Micawber should
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| 32 | quit London, and exert his talents in the country. Mr. Micawber is
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| 33 | a man of great talent, Master Copperfield.'
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| 34 | I said I was sure of that.
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| 35 | 'Of great talent,' repeated Mrs. Micawber. 'My family are of
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| 36 | opinion, that, with a little interest, something might be done for
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| 37 | a man of his ability in the Custom House. The influence of my
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| 38 | family being local, it is their wish that Mr. Micawber should go
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| 39 | down to Plymouth. They think it indispensable that he should be
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| 40 | upon the spot.'
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| 41 | 'That he may be ready?' I suggested.
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| 42 | 'Exactly,' returned Mrs. Micawber. 'That he may be ready - in case
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| 43 | of anything turning up.'
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| 44 | 'And do you go too, ma'am?'
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| 45 | The events of the day, in combination with the twins, if not with
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| 46 | the flip, had made Mrs. Micawber hysterical, and she shed tears as
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| 47 | she replied:
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| 48 | 'I never will desert Mr. Micawber. Mr. Micawber may have concealed
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| 49 | his difficulties from me in the first instance, but his sanguine
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| 50 | temper may have led him to expect that he would overcome them. The
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| 51 | pearl necklace and bracelets which I inherited from mama, have been
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| 52 | disposed of for less than half their value; and the set of coral,
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| 53 | which was the wedding gift of my papa, has been actually thrown
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| 54 | away for nothing. But I never will desert Mr. Micawber. No!'
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| 55 | cried Mrs. Micawber, more affected than before, 'I never will do
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| 56 | it! It's of no use asking me!'
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| 57 | I felt quite uncomfortable - as if Mrs. Micawber supposed I had
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| 58 | asked her to do anything of the sort! - and sat looking at her in
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| 59 | alarm.
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| 60 | 'Mr. Micawber has his faults. I do not deny that he is
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| 61 | improvident. I do not deny that he has kept me in the dark as to
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| 62 | his resources and his liabilities both,' she went on, looking at
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| 63 | the wall; 'but I never will desert Mr. Micawber!'
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| 64 | Mrs. Micawber having now raised her voice into a perfect scream, I
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| 65 | was so frightened that I ran off to the club-room, and disturbed
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| 66 | Mr. Micawber in the act of presiding at a long table, and leading
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| 67 | the chorus of
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| 68 | Gee up, Dobbin,
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| 69 | Gee ho, Dobbin,
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| 70 | Gee up, Dobbin,
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| 71 | Gee up, and gee ho - o - o!
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| 72 | with the tidings that Mrs. Micawber was in an alarming state, upon
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| 73 | which he immediately burst into tears, and came away with me with
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| 74 | his waistcoat full of the heads and tails of shrimps, of which he
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| 75 | had been partaking.
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| 76 | 'Emma, my angel!' cried Mr. Micawber, running into the room; 'what
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| 77 | is the matter?'
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| 78 | 'I never will desert you, Micawber!' she exclaimed.
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| 79 | 'My life!' said Mr. Micawber, taking her in his arms. 'I am
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| 80 | perfectly aware of it.'
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| 81 | 'He is the parent of my children! He is the father of my twins!
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| 82 | He is the husband of my affections,' cried Mrs. Micawber,
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| 83 | struggling; 'and I ne - ver - will - desert Mr. Micawber!'
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| 84 | Mr. Micawber was so deeply affected by this proof of her devotion
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| 85 | (as to me, I was dissolved in tears), that he hung over her in a
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| 86 | passionate manner, imploring her to look up, and to be calm. But
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| 87 | the more he asked Mrs. Micawber to look up, the more she fixed her
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| 88 | eyes on nothing; and the more he asked her to compose herself, the
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| 89 | more she wouldn't. Consequently Mr. Micawber was soon so overcome,
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| 90 | that he mingled his tears with hers and mine; until he begged me to
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| 91 | do him the favour of taking a chair on the staircase, while he got
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| 92 | her into bed. I would have taken my leave for the night, but he
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| 93 | would not hear of my doing that until the strangers' bell should
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| 94 | ring. So I sat at the staircase window, until he came out with
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| 95 | another chair and joined me.
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| 96 | 'How is Mrs. Micawber now, sir?' I said.
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| 97 | 'Very low,' said Mr. Micawber, shaking his head; 'reaction. Ah,
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| 98 | this has been a dreadful day! We stand alone now - everything is
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| 99 | gone from us!'
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| 100 | Mr. Micawber pressed my hand, and groaned, and afterwards shed
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| 101 | tears. I was greatly touched, and disappointed too, for I had
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| 102 | expected that we should be quite gay on this happy and
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| 103 | long-looked-for occasion. But Mr. and Mrs. Micawber were so used
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| 104 | to their old difficulties, I think, that they felt quite
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| 105 | shipwrecked when they came to consider that they were released from
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| 106 | them. All their elasticity was departed, and I never saw them half
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| 107 | so wretched as on this night; insomuch that when the bell rang, and
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| 108 | Mr. Micawber walked with me to the lodge, and parted from me there
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| 109 | with a blessing, I felt quite afraid to leave him by himself, he
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| 110 | was so profoundly miserable.
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| 111 | But through all the confusion and lowness of spirits in which we
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| 112 | had been, so unexpectedly to me, involved, I plainly discerned that
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| 113 | Mr. and Mrs. Micawber and their family were going away from London,
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| 114 | and that a parting between us was near at hand. It was in my walk
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| 115 | home that night, and in the sleepless hours which followed when I
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| 116 | lay in bed, that the thought first occurred to me - though I don't
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| 117 | know how it came into my head - which afterwards shaped itself into
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| 118 | a settled resolution.
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| 119 | I had grown to be so accustomed to the Micawbers, and had been so
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| 120 | intimate with them in their distresses, and was so utterly
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| 121 | friendless without them, that the prospect of being thrown upon
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| 122 | some new shift for a lodging, and going once more among unknown
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| 123 | people, was like being that moment turned adrift into my present
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| 124 | life, with such a knowledge of it ready made as experience had
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| 125 | given me. All the sensitive feelings it wounded so cruelly, all
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| 126 | the shame and misery it kept alive within my breast, became more
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| 127 | poignant as I thought of this; and I determined that the life was
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| 128 | unendurable.
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| 129 | That there was no hope of escape from it, unless the escape was my
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| 130 | own act, I knew quite well. I rarely heard from Miss Murdstone,
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| 131 | and never from Mr. Murdstone: but two or three parcels of made or
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| 132 | mended clothes had come up for me, consigned to Mr. Quinion, and in
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| 133 | each there was a scrap of paper to the effect that J. M. trusted D.
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| 134 | C. was applying himself to business, and devoting himself wholly to
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| 135 | his duties - not the least hint of my ever being anything else than
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| 136 | the common drudge into which I was fast settling down.
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| 137 | The very next day showed me, while my mind was in the first
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| 138 | agitation of what it had conceived, that Mrs. Micawber had not
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| 139 | spoken of their going away without warrant. They took a lodging in
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| 140 | the house where I lived, for a week; at the expiration of which
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| 141 | time they were to start for Plymouth. Mr. Micawber himself came
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| 142 | down to the counting-house, in the afternoon, to tell Mr. Quinion
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| 143 | that he must relinquish me on the day of his departure, and to give
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| 144 | me a high character, which I am sure I deserved. And Mr. Quinion,
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| 145 | calling in Tipp the carman, who was a married man, and had a room
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| 146 | to let, quartered me prospectively on him - by our mutual consent,
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| 147 | as he had every reason to think; for I said nothing, though my
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| 148 | resolution was now taken.
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| 149 | I passed my evenings with Mr. and Mrs. Micawber, during the
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| 150 | remaining term of our residence under the same roof; and I think we
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| 151 | became fonder of one another as the time went on. On the last
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| 152 | Sunday, they invited me to dinner; and we had a loin of pork and
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| 153 | apple sauce, and a pudding. I had bought a spotted wooden horse
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| 154 | over-night as a parting gift to little Wilkins Micawber - that was
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| 155 | the boy - and a doll for little Emma. I had also bestowed a
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| 156 | shilling on the Orfling, who was about to be disbanded.
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| 157 | We had a very pleasant day, though we were all in a tender state
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| 158 | about our approaching separation.
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| 159 | 'I shall never, Master Copperfield,' said Mrs. Micawber, 'revert to
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| 160 | the period when Mr. Micawber was in difficulties, without thinking
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| 161 | of you. Your conduct has always been of the most delicate and
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| 162 | obliging description. You have never been a lodger. You have been
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| 163 | a friend.'
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| 164 | 'My dear,' said Mr. Micawber; 'Copperfield,' for so he had been
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| 165 | accustomed to call me, of late, 'has a heart to feel for the
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| 166 | distresses of his fellow-creatures when they are behind a cloud,
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| 167 | and a head to plan, and a hand to - in short, a general ability to
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| 168 | dispose of such available property as could be made away with.'
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| 169 | I expressed my sense of this commendation, and said I was very
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| 170 | sorry we were going to lose one another.
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| 171 | 'My dear young friend,' said Mr. Micawber, 'I am older than you; a
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| 172 | man of some experience in life, and - and of some experience, in
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| 173 | short, in difficulties, generally speaking. At present, and until
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| 174 | something turns up (which I am, I may say, hourly expecting), I
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| 175 | have nothing to bestow but advice. Still my advice is so far worth
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| 176 | taking, that - in short, that I have never taken it myself, and am
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| 177 | the' - here Mr. Micawber, who had been beaming and smiling, all
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| 178 | over his head and face, up to the present moment, checked himself
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| 179 | and frowned - 'the miserable wretch you behold.'
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| 180 | 'My dear Micawber!' urged his wife.
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| 181 | 'I say,' returned Mr. Micawber, quite forgetting himself, and
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| 182 | smiling again, 'the miserable wretch you behold. My advice is,
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| 183 | never do tomorrow what you can do today. Procrastination is the
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| 184 | thief of time. Collar him!'
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| 185 | 'My poor papa's maxim,' Mrs. Micawber observed.
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| 186 | 'My dear,' said Mr. Micawber, 'your papa was very well in his way,
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| 187 | and Heaven forbid that I should disparage him. Take him for all in
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| 188 | all, we ne'er shall - in short, make the acquaintance, probably, of
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| 189 | anybody else possessing, at his time of life, the same legs for
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| 190 | gaiters, and able to read the same description of print, without
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| 191 | spectacles. But he applied that maxim to our marriage, my dear;
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| 192 | and that was so far prematurely entered into, in consequence, that
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| 193 | I never recovered the expense.' Mr. Micawber looked aside at Mrs.
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| 194 | Micawber, and added: 'Not that I am sorry for it. Quite the
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| 195 | contrary, my love.' After which, he was grave for a minute or so.
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| 196 | 'My other piece of advice, Copperfield,' said Mr. Micawber, 'you
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| 197 | know. Annual income twenty pounds, annual expenditure nineteen
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| 198 | nineteen and six, result happiness. Annual income twenty pounds,
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| 199 | annual expenditure twenty pounds ought and six, result misery. The
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| 200 | blossom is blighted, the leaf is withered, the god of day goes down
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| 201 | upon the dreary scene, and - and in short you are for ever floored.
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| 202 | As I am!'
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| 203 | To make his example the more impressive, Mr. Micawber drank a glass
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| 204 | of punch with an air of great enjoyment and satisfaction, and
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| 205 | whistled the College Hornpipe.
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| 206 | I did not fail to assure him that I would store these precepts in
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| 207 | my mind, though indeed I had no need to do so, for, at the time,
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| 208 | they affected me visibly. Next morning I met the whole family at
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| 209 | the coach office, and saw them, with a desolate heart, take their
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| 210 | places outside, at the back.
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| 211 | 'Master Copperfield,' said Mrs. Micawber, 'God bless you! I never
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| 212 | can forget all that, you know, and I never would if I could.'
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| 213 | 'Copperfield,' said Mr. Micawber, 'farewell! Every happiness and
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| 214 | prosperity! If, in the progress of revolving years, I could
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| 215 | persuade myself that my blighted destiny had been a warning to you,
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| 216 | I should feel that I had not occupied another man's place in
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| 217 | existence altogether in vain. In case of anything turning up (of
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| 218 | which I am rather confident), I shall be extremely happy if it
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| 219 | should be in my power to improve your prospects.'
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| 220 | I think, as Mrs. Micawber sat at the back of the coach, with the
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| 221 | children, and I stood in the road looking wistfully at them, a mist
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| 222 | cleared from her eyes, and she saw what a little creature I really
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| 223 | was. I think so, because she beckoned to me to climb up, with
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| 224 | quite a new and motherly expression in her face, and put her arm
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| 225 | round my neck, and gave me just such a kiss as she might have given
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| 226 | to her own boy. I had barely time to get down again before the
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| 227 | coach started, and I could hardly see the family for the
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| 228 | handkerchiefs they waved. It was gone in a minute. The Orfling
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| 229 | and I stood looking vacantly at each other in the middle of the
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| 230 | road, and then shook hands and said good-bye; she going back, I
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| 231 | suppose, to St. Luke's workhouse, as I went to begin my weary day
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| 232 | at Murdstone and Grinby's.
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| 233 | But with no intention of passing many more weary days there. No.
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| 234 | I had resolved to run away. - To go, by some means or other, down
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| 235 | into the country, to the only relation I had in the world, and tell
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| 236 | my story to my aunt, Miss Betsey.
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| 237 | I have already observed that I don't know how this desperate idea
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| 238 | came into my brain. But, once there, it remained there; and
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| 239 | hardened into a purpose than which I have never entertained a more
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| 240 | determined purpose in my life. I am far from sure that I believed
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| 241 | there was anything hopeful in it, but my mind was thoroughly made
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| 242 | up that it must be carried into execution.
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| 243 | Again, and again, and a hundred times again, since the night when
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| 244 | the thought had first occurred to me and banished sleep, I had gone
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| 245 | over that old story of my poor mother's about my birth, which it
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| 246 | had been one of my great delights in the old time to hear her tell,
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| 247 | and which I knew by heart. My aunt walked into that story, and
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| 248 | walked out of it, a dread and awful personage; but there was one
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| 249 | little trait in her behaviour which I liked to dwell on, and which
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| 250 | gave me some faint shadow of encouragement. I could not forget how
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| 251 | my mother had thought that she felt her touch her pretty hair with
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| 252 | no ungentle hand; and though it might have been altogether my
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| 253 | mother's fancy, and might have had no foundation whatever in fact,
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| 254 | I made a little picture, out of it, of my terrible aunt relenting
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| 255 | towards the girlish beauty that I recollected so well and loved so
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| 256 | much, which softened the whole narrative. It is very possible that
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| 257 | it had been in my mind a long time, and had gradually engendered my
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| 258 | determination.
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| 259 | As I did not even know where Miss Betsey lived, I wrote a long
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| 260 | letter to Peggotty, and asked her, incidentally, if she remembered;
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| 261 | pretending that I had heard of such a lady living at a certain
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| 262 | place I named at random, and had a curiosity to know if it were the
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| 263 | same. In the course of that letter, I told Peggotty that I had a
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| 264 | particular occasion for half a guinea; and that if she could lend
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| 265 | me that sum until I could repay it, I should be very much obliged
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| 266 | to her, and would tell her afterwards what I had wanted it for.
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| 267 | Peggotty's answer soon arrived, and was, as usual, full of
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| 268 | affectionate devotion. She enclosed the half guinea (I was afraid
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| 269 | she must have had a world of trouble to get it out of Mr. Barkis's
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| 270 | box), and told me that Miss Betsey lived near Dover, but whether at
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| 271 | Dover itself, at Hythe, Sandgate, or Folkestone, she could not say.
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| 272 | One of our men, however, informing me on my asking him about these
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| 273 | places, that they were all close together, I deemed this enough for
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| 274 | my object, and resolved to set out at the end of that week.
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| 275 | Being a very honest little creature, and unwilling to disgrace the
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| 276 | memory I was going to leave behind me at Murdstone and Grinby's, I
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| 277 | considered myself bound to remain until Saturday night; and, as I
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| 278 | had been paid a week's wages in advance when I first came there,
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| 279 | not to present myself in the counting-house at the usual hour, to
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| 280 | receive my stipend. For this express reason, I had borrowed the
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| 281 | half-guinea, that I might not be without a fund for my
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| 282 | travelling-expenses. Accordingly, when the Saturday night came,
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| 283 | and we were all waiting in the warehouse to be paid, and Tipp the
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| 284 | carman, who always took precedence, went in first to draw his
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| 285 | money, I shook Mick Walker by the hand; asked him, when it came to
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| 286 | his turn to be paid, to say to Mr. Quinion that I had gone to move
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| 287 | my box to Tipp's; and, bidding a last good night to Mealy Potatoes,
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| 288 | ran away.
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| 289 | My box was at my old lodging, over the water, and I had written a
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| 290 | direction for it on the back of one of our address cards that we
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| 291 | nailed on the casks: 'Master David, to be left till called for, at
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| 292 | the Coach Office, Dover.' This I had in my pocket ready to put on
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| 293 | the box, after I should have got it out of the house; and as I went
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| 294 | towards my lodging, I looked about me for someone who would help me
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| 295 | to carry it to the booking-office.
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| 296 | There was a long-legged young man with a very little empty
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| 297 | donkey-cart, standing near the Obelisk, in the Blackfriars Road,
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| 298 | whose eye I caught as I was going by, and who, addressing me as
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| 299 | 'Sixpenn'orth of bad ha'pence,' hoped 'I should know him agin to
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| 300 | swear to' - in allusion, I have no doubt, to my staring at him. I
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| 301 | stopped to assure him that I had not done so in bad manners, but
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| 302 | uncertain whether he might or might not like a job.
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| 303 | 'Wot job?' said the long-legged young man.
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| 304 | 'To move a box,' I answered.
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| 305 | 'Wot box?' said the long-legged young man.
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| 306 | I told him mine, which was down that street there, and which I
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| 307 | wanted him to take to the Dover coach office for sixpence.
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| 308 | 'Done with you for a tanner!' said the long-legged young man, and
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| 309 | directly got upon his cart, which was nothing but a large wooden
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| 310 | tray on wheels, and rattled away at such a rate, that it was as
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| 311 | much as I could do to keep pace with the donkey.
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| 312 | There was a defiant manner about this young man, and particularly
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| 313 | about the way in which he chewed straw as he spoke to me, that I
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| 314 | did not much like; as the bargain was made, however, I took him
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| 315 | upstairs to the room I was leaving, and we brought the box down,
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| 316 | and put it on his cart. Now, I was unwilling to put the
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| 317 | direction-card on there, lest any of my landlord's family should
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| 318 | fathom what I was doing, and detain me; so I said to the young man
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| 319 | that I would be glad if he would stop for a minute, when he came to
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| 320 | the dead-wall of the King's Bench prison. The words were no sooner
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| 321 | out of my mouth, than he rattled away as if he, my box, the cart,
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| 322 | and the donkey, were all equally mad; and I was quite out of breath
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| 323 | with running and calling after him, when I caught him at the place
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| 324 | appointed.
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| 325 | Being much flushed and excited, I tumbled my half-guinea out of my
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| 326 | pocket in pulling the card out. I put it in my mouth for safety,
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| 327 | and though my hands trembled a good deal, had just tied the card on
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| 328 | very much to my satisfaction, when I felt myself violently chucked
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| 329 | under the chin by the long-legged young man, and saw my half-guinea
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| 330 | fly out of my mouth into his hand.
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| 331 | 'Wot!' said the young man, seizing me by my jacket collar, with a
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| 332 | frightful grin. 'This is a pollis case, is it? You're a-going to
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| 333 | bolt, are you? Come to the pollis, you young warmin, come to the
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| 334 | pollis!'
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| 335 | 'You give me my money back, if you please,' said I, very much
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| 336 | frightened; 'and leave me alone.'
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| 337 | 'Come to the pollis!' said the young man. 'You shall prove it
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| 338 | yourn to the pollis.'
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| 339 | 'Give me my box and money, will you,' I cried, bursting into tears.
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| 340 | The young man still replied: 'Come to the pollis!' and was dragging
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| 341 | me against the donkey in a violent manner, as if there were any
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| 342 | affinity between that animal and a magistrate, when he changed his
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| 343 | mind, jumped into the cart, sat upon my box, and, exclaiming that
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| 344 | he would drive to the pollis straight, rattled away harder than
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| 345 | ever.
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| 346 | I ran after him as fast as I could, but I had no breath to call out
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| 347 | with, and should not have dared to call out, now, if I had. I
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| 348 | narrowly escaped being run over, twenty times at least, in half a
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| 349 | mile. Now I lost him, now I saw him, now I lost him, now I was cut
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| 350 | at with a whip, now shouted at, now down in the mud, now up again,
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| 351 | now running into somebody's arms, now running headlong at a post.
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| 352 | At length, confused by fright and heat, and doubting whether half
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| 353 | London might not by this time be turning out for my apprehension,
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| 354 | I left the young man to go where he would with my box and money;
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| 355 | and, panting and crying, but never stopping, faced about for
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| 356 | Greenwich, which I had understood was on the Dover Road: taking
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| 357 | very little more out of the world, towards the retreat of my aunt,
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| 358 | Miss Betsey, than I had brought into it, on the night when my
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| 359 | arrival gave her so much umbrage.
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