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Charles Dickens
Chapter 23
Charles Dickens
 
 
1       When I awoke in the morning I thought very much of little Em'ly,
2  and her emotion last night, after Martha had left. I felt as if I
3  had come into the knowledge of those domestic weaknesses and
4  tendernesses in a sacred confidence, and that to disclose them,
5  even to Steerforth, would be wrong. I had no gentler feeling
6  towards anyone than towards the pretty creature who had been my
7  playmate, and whom I have always been persuaded, and shall always
8  be persuaded, to my dying day, I then devotedly loved. The
9  repetition to any ears - even to Steerforth's - of what she had
10  been unable to repress when her heart lay open to me by an
11  accident, I felt would be a rough deed, unworthy of myself,
12  unworthy of the light of our pure childhood, which I always saw
13  encircling her head. I made a resolution, therefore, to keep it in
14  my own breast; and there it gave her image a new grace.

15       While we were at breakfast, a letter was delivered to me from my
16  aunt. As it contained matter on which I thought Steerforth could
17  advise me as well as anyone, and on which I knew I should be
18  delighted to consult him, I resolved to make it a subject of
19  discussion on our journey home. For the present we had enough to
20  do, in taking leave of all our friends. Mr. Barkis was far from
21  being the last among them, in his regret at our departure; and I
22  believe would even have opened the box again, and sacrificed
23  another guinea, if it would have kept us eight-and-forty hours in
24  Yarmouth. Peggotty and all her family were full of grief at our
25  going. The whole house of Omer and Joram turned out to bid us
26  good-bye; and there were so many seafaring volunteers in attendance
27  on Steerforth, when our portmanteaux went to the coach, that if we
28  had had the baggage of a regiment with us, we should hardly have
29  wanted porters to carry it. In a word, we departed to the regret
30  and admiration of all concerned, and left a great many people very
31  sorry behind US.

32       Do you stay long here, Littimer?' said I, as he stood waiting to
33  see the coach start.

34       'No, sir,' he replied; 'probably not very long, sir.'

35       'He can hardly say, just now,' observed Steerforth, carelessly.
36  'He knows what he has to do, and he'll do it.'

37       'That I am sure he will,' said I.

38       Littimer touched his hat in acknowledgement of my good opinion, and
39  I felt about eight years old. He touched it once more, wishing us
40  a good journey; and we left him standing on the pavement, as
41  respectable a mystery as any pyramid in Egypt.

42       For some little time we held no conversation, Steerforth being
43  unusually silent, and I being sufficiently engaged in wondering,
44  within myself, when I should see the old places again, and what new
45  changes might happen to me or them in the meanwhile. At length
46  Steerforth, becoming gay and talkative in a moment, as he could
47  become anything he liked at any moment, pulled me by the arm:

48       'Find a voice, David. What about that letter you were speaking of
49  at breakfast?'

50       'Oh!' said I, taking it out of my pocket. 'It's from my aunt.'

51       'And what does she say, requiring consideration?'

52       'Why, she reminds me, Steerforth,' said I, 'that I came out on
53  this expedition to look about me, and to think a little.'

54       'Which, of course, you have done?'

55       'Indeed I can't say I have, particularly. To tell you the truth,
56  I am afraid I have forgotten it.'

57       'Well! look about you now, and make up for your negligence,' said
58  Steerforth. 'Look to the right, and you'll see a flat country,
59  with a good deal of marsh in it; look to the left, and you'll see
60  the same. Look to the front, and you'll find no difference; look
61  to the rear, and there it is still.'
62  I laughed, and replied that I saw no suitable profession in the
63  whole prospect; which was perhaps to be attributed to its flatness.

64       'What says our aunt on the subject?' inquired Steerforth, glancing
65  at the letter in my hand. 'Does she suggest anything?'

66       'Why, yes,' said I. 'She asks me, here, if I think I should like
67  to be a proctor? What do you think of it?'

68       'Well, I don't know,' replied Steerforth, coolly. 'You may as well
69  do that as anything else, I suppose?'

70       I could not help laughing again, at his balancing all callings and
71  professions so equally; and I told him so.

72       'What is a proctor, Steerforth?' said I.

73       'Why, he is a sort of monkish attorney,' replied Steerforth. 'He
74  is, to some faded courts held in Doctors' Commons, - a lazy old
75  nook near St. Paul's Churchyard - what solicitors are to the courts
76  of law and equity. He is a functionary whose existence, in the
77  natural course of things, would have terminated about two hundred
78  years ago. I can tell you best what he is, by telling you what
79  Doctors' Commons is. It's a little out-of-the-way place, where
80  they administer what is called ecclesiastical law, and play all
81  kinds of tricks with obsolete old monsters of acts of Parliament,
82  which three-fourths of the world know nothing about, and the other
83  fourth supposes to have been dug up, in a fossil state, in the days
84  of the Edwards. It's a place that has an ancient monopoly in suits
85  about people's wills and people's marriages, and disputes among
86  ships and boats.'

87       'Nonsense, Steerforth!' I exclaimed. 'You don't mean to say that
88  there is any affinity between nautical matters and ecclesiastical
89  matters?'

90       'I don't, indeed, my dear boy,' he returned; 'but I mean to say
91  that they are managed and decided by the same set of people, down
92  in that same Doctors' Commons. You shall go there one day, and
93  find them blundering through half the nautical terms in Young's
94  Dictionary, apropos of the "Nancy" having run down the "Sarah
95  Jane", or Mr. Peggotty and the Yarmouth boatmen having put off in
96  a gale of wind with an anchor and cable to the "Nelson" Indiaman in
97  distress; and you shall go there another day, and find them deep in
98  the evidence, pro and con, respecting a clergyman who has
99  misbehaved himself; and you shall find the judge in the nautical
100  case, the advocate in the clergyman's case, or contrariwise. They
101  are like actors: now a man's a judge, and now he is not a judge;
102  now he's one thing, now he's another; now he's something else,
103  change and change about; but it's always a very pleasant,
104  profitable little affair of private theatricals, presented to an
105  uncommonly select audience.'

106       'But advocates and proctors are not one and the same?' said I, a
107  little puzzled. 'Are they?'

108       'No,' returned Steerforth, 'the advocates are civilians - men who
109  have taken a doctor's degree at college - which is the first reason
110  of my knowing anything about it. The proctors employ the
111  advocates. Both get very comfortable fees, and altogether they
112  make a mighty snug little party. On the whole, I would recommend
113  you to take to Doctors' Commons kindly, David. They plume them-
114  selves on their gentility there, I can tell you, if that's any
115  satisfaction.'

116       I made allowance for Steerforth's light way of treating the
117  subject, and, considering it with reference to the staid air of
118  gravity and antiquity which I associated with that 'lazy old nook
119  near St. Paul's Churchyard', did not feel indisposed towards my
120  aunt's suggestion; which she left to my free decision, making no
121  scruple of telling me that it had occurred to her, on her lately
122  visiting her own proctor in Doctors' Commons for the purpose of
123  settling her will in my favour.

124       'That's a laudable proceeding on the part of our aunt, at all
125  events,' said Steerforth, when I mentioned it; 'and one deserving
126  of all encouragement. Daisy, my advice is that you take kindly to
127  Doctors' Commons.'

128       I quite made up my mind to do so. I then told Steerforth that my
129  aunt was in town awaiting me (as I found from her letter), and that
130  she had taken lodgings for a week at a kind of private hotel at
131  Lincoln's Inn Fields, where there was a stone staircase, and a
132  convenient door in the roof; my aunt being firmly persuaded that
133  every house in London was going to be burnt down every night.

134       We achieved the rest of our journey pleasantly, sometimes recurring
135  to Doctors' Commons, and anticipating the distant days when I
136  should be a proctor there, which Steerforth pictured in a variety
137  of humorous and whimsical lights, that made us both merry. When we
138  came to our journey's end, he went home, engaging to call upon me
139  next day but one; and I drove to Lincoln's Inn Fields, where I
140  found my aunt up, and waiting supper.

141       If I had been round the world since we parted, we could hardly have
142  been better pleased to meet again. My aunt cried outright as she
143  embraced me; and said, pretending to laugh, that if my poor mother
144  had been alive, that silly little creature would have shed tears,
145  she had no doubt.

146       'So you have left Mr. Dick behind, aunt?' said I. 'I am sorry for
147  that. Ah, Janet, how do you do?'

148       As Janet curtsied, hoping I was well, I observed my aunt's visage
149  lengthen very much.

150       'I am sorry for it, too,' said my aunt, rubbing her nose. 'I have
151  had no peace of mind, Trot, since I have been here.'
152  Before I could ask why, she told me.

153       'I am convinced,' said my aunt, laying her hand with melancholy
154  firmness on the table, 'that Dick's character is not a character to
155  keep the donkeys off. I am confident he wants strength of purpose.
156  I ought to have left Janet at home, instead, and then my mind might
157  perhaps have been at ease. If ever there was a donkey trespassing
158  on my green,' said my aunt, with emphasis, 'there was one this
159  afternoon at four o'clock. A cold feeling came over me from head
160  to foot, and I know it was a donkey!'

161       I tried to comfort her on this point, but she rejected consolation.

162       'It was a donkey,' said my aunt; 'and it was the one with the
163  stumpy tail which that Murdering sister of a woman rode, when she
164  came to my house.' This had been, ever since, the only name my
165  aunt knew for Miss Murdstone. 'If there is any Donkey in Dover,
166  whose audacity it is harder to me to bear than another's, that,'
167  said my aunt, striking the table, 'is the animal!'

168       Janet ventured to suggest that my aunt might be disturbing herself
169  unnecessarily, and that she believed the donkey in question was
170  then engaged in the sand-and-gravel line of business, and was not
171  available for purposes of trespass. But my aunt wouldn't hear of
172  it.

173       Supper was comfortably served and hot, though my aunt's rooms were
174  very high up - whether that she might have more stone stairs for
175  her money, or might be nearer to the door in the roof, I don't know
176  - and consisted of a roast fowl, a steak, and some vegetables, to
177  all of which I did ample justice, and which were all excellent.
178  But my aunt had her own ideas concerning London provision, and ate
179  but little.

180       'I suppose this unfortunate fowl was born and brought up in a
181  cellar,' said my aunt, 'and never took the air except on a hackney
182  coach-stand. I hope the steak may be beef, but I don't believe it.
183  Nothing's genuine in the place, in my opinion, but the dirt.'

184       'Don't you think the fowl may have come out of the country, aunt?'
185  I hinted.

186       'Certainly not,' returned my aunt. 'It would be no pleasure to a
187  London tradesman to sell anything which was what he pretended it
188  was.'

189       I did not venture to controvert this opinion, but I made a good
190  supper, which it greatly satisfied her to see me do. When the
191  table was cleared, Janet assisted her to arrange her hair, to put
192  on her nightcap, which was of a smarter construction than usual
193  ('in case of fire', my aunt said), and to fold her gown back over
194  her knees, these being her usual preparations for warming herself
195  before going to bed. I then made her, according to certain
196  established regulations from which no deviation, however slight,
197  could ever be permitted, a glass of hot wine and water, and a slice
198  of toast cut into long thin strips. With these accompaniments we
199  were left alone to finish the evening, my aunt sitting opposite to
200  me drinking her wine and water; soaking her strips of toast in it,
201  one by one, before eating them; and looking benignantly on me, from
202  among the borders of her nightcap.

203       'Well, Trot,' she began, 'what do you think of the proctor plan?
204  Or have you not begun to think about it yet?'

205       'I have thought a good deal about it, my dear aunt, and I have
206  talked a good deal about it with Steerforth. I like it very much
207  indeed. I like it exceedingly.'

208       'Come!' said my aunt. 'That's cheering!'

209       'I have only one difficulty, aunt.'

210       'Say what it is, Trot,' she returned.

211       'Why, I want to ask, aunt, as this seems, from what I understand,
212  to be a limited profession, whether my entrance into it would not
213  be very expensive?'

214       'It will cost,' returned my aunt, 'to article you, just a thousand
215  pounds.'

216       'Now, my dear aunt,' said I, drawing my chair nearer, 'I am uneasy
217  in my mind about that. It's a large sum of money. You have
218  expended a great deal on my education, and have always been as
219  liberal to me in all things as it was possible to be. You have
220  been the soul of generosity. Surely there are some ways in which
221  I might begin life with hardly any outlay, and yet begin with a
222  good hope of getting on by resolution and exertion. Are you sure
223  that it would not be better to try that course? Are you certain
224  that you can afford to part with so much money, and that it is
225  right that it should be so expended? I only ask you, my second
226  mother, to consider. Are you certain?'

227       My aunt finished eating the piece of toast on which she was then
228  engaged, looking me full in the face all the while; and then
229  setting her glass on the chimney-piece, and folding her hands upon
230  her folded skirts, replied as follows:

231       'Trot, my child, if I have any object in life, it is to provide for
232  your being a good, a sensible, and a happy man. I am bent upon it
233  - so is Dick. I should like some people that I know to hear Dick's
234  conversation on the subject. Its sagacity is wonderful. But no
235  one knows the resources of that man's intellect, except myself!'

236       She stopped for a moment to take my hand between hers, and went on:

237       'It's in vain, Trot, to recall the past, unless it works some
238  influence upon the present. Perhaps I might have been better
239  friends with your poor father. Perhaps I might have been better
240  friends with that poor child your mother, even after your sister
241  Betsey Trotwood disappointed me. When you came to me, a little
242  runaway boy, all dusty and way-worn, perhaps I thought so. From
243  that time until now, Trot, you have ever been a credit to me and a
244  pride and a pleasure. I have no other claim upon my means; at
245  least' - here to my surprise she hesitated, and was confused - 'no,
246  I have no other claim upon my means - and you are my adopted child.
247  Only be a loving child to me in my age, and bear with my whims and
248  fancies; and you will do more for an old woman whose prime of life
249  was not so happy or conciliating as it might have been, than ever
250  that old woman did for you.'

251       It was the first time I had heard my aunt refer to her past
252  history. There was a magnanimity in her quiet way of doing so, and
253  of dismissing it, which would have exalted her in my respect and
254  affection, if anything could.

255       'All is agreed and understood between us, now, Trot,' said my aunt,
256  'and we need talk of this no more. Give me a kiss, and we'll go to
257  the Commons after breakfast tomorrow.'

258       We had a long chat by the fire before we went to bed. I slept in
259  a room on the same floor with my aunt's, and was a little disturbed
260  in the course of the night by her knocking at my door as often as
261  she was agitated by a distant sound of hackney-coaches or
262  market-carts, and inquiring, 'if I heard the engines?' But towards
263  morning she slept better, and suffered me to do so too.

264       At about mid-day, we set out for the office of Messrs Spenlow and
265  Jorkins, in Doctors' Commons. My aunt, who had this other general
266  opinion in reference to London, that every man she saw was a
267  pickpocket, gave me her purse to carry for her, which had ten
268  guineas in it and some silver.

269       We made a pause at the toy shop in Fleet Street, to see the giants
270  of Saint Dunstan's strike upon the bells - we had timed our going,
271  so as to catch them at it, at twelve o'clock - and then went on
272  towards Ludgate Hill, and St. Paul's Churchyard. We were crossing
273  to the former place, when I found that my aunt greatly accelerated
274  her speed, and looked frightened. I observed, at the same time,
275  that a lowering ill-dressed man who had stopped and stared at us in
276  passing, a little before, was coming so close after us as to brush
277  against her.

278       'Trot! My dear Trot!' cried my aunt, in a terrified whisper, and
279  pressing my arm. 'I don't know what I am to do.'

280       'Don't be alarmed,' said I. 'There's nothing to be afraid of.
281  Step into a shop, and I'll soon get rid of this fellow.'

282       'No, no, child!' she returned. 'Don't speak to him for the world.
283  I entreat, I order you!'

284       'Good Heaven, aunt!' said I. 'He is nothing but a sturdy
285  beggar.'

286       'You don't know what he is!' replied my aunt. 'You don't know who
287  he is! You don't know what you say!'

288       We had stopped in an empty door-way, while this was passing, and he
289  had stopped too.

290       'Don't look at him!' said my aunt, as I turned my head indignantly,
291  'but get me a coach, my dear, and wait for me in St. Paul's
292  Churchyard.'

293       'Wait for you?' I replied.

294       'Yes,' rejoined my aunt. 'I must go alone. I must go with him.'

295       'With him, aunt? This man?'

296       'I am in my senses,' she replied, 'and I tell you I must. Get mea
297  coach!'

298       However much astonished I might be, I was sensible that I had no
299  right to refuse compliance with such a peremptory command. I
300  hurried away a few paces, and called a hackney-chariot which was
301  passing empty. Almost before I could let down the steps, my aunt
302  sprang in, I don't know how, and the man followed. She waved her
303  hand to me to go away, so earnestly, that, all confounded as I was,
304  I turned from them at once. In doing so, I heard her say to the
305  coachman, 'Drive anywhere! Drive straight on!' and presently the
306  chariot passed me, going up the hill.

307       What Mr. Dick had told me, and what I had supposed to be a delusion
308  of his, now came into my mind. I could not doubt that this person
309  was the person of whom he had made such mysterious mention, though
310  what the nature of his hold upon my aunt could possibly be, I was
311  quite unable to imagine. After half an hour's cooling in the
312  churchyard, I saw the chariot coming back. The driver stopped
313  beside me, and my aunt was sitting in it alone.

314       She had not yet sufficiently recovered from her agitation to be
315  quite prepared for the visit we had to make. She desired me to get
316  into the chariot, and to tell the coachman to drive slowly up and
317  down a little while. She said no more, except, 'My dear child,
318  never ask me what it was, and don't refer to it,' until she had
319  perfectly regained her composure, when she told me she was quite
320  herself now, and we might get out. On her giving me her purse to
321  pay the driver, I found that all the guineas were gone, and only
322  the loose silver remained.

323       Doctors' Commons was approached by a little low archway. Before we
324  had taken many paces down the street beyond it, the noise of the
325  city seemed to melt, as if by magic, into a softened distance. A
326  few dull courts and narrow ways brought us to the sky-lighted
327  offices of Spenlow and Jorkins; in the vestibule of which temple,
328  accessible to pilgrims without the ceremony of knocking, three or
329  four clerks were at work as copyists. One of these, a little dry
330  man, sitting by himself, who wore a stiff brown wig that looked as
331  if it were made of gingerbread, rose to receive my aunt, and show
332  us into Mr. Spenlow's room.

333       'Mr. Spenlow's in Court, ma'am,' said the dry man; 'it's an Arches
334  day; but it's close by, and I'll send for him directly.'

335       As we were left to look about us while Mr. Spenlow was fetched, I
336  availed myself of the opportunity. The furniture of the room was
337  old-fashioned and dusty; and the green baize on the top of the
338  writing-table had lost all its colour, and was as withered and pale
339  as an old pauper. There were a great many bundles of papers on it,
340  some endorsed as Allegations, and some (to my surprise) as Libels,
341  and some as being in the Consistory Court, and some in the Arches
342  Court, and some in the Prerogative Court, and some in the Admiralty
343  Court, and some in the Delegates' Court; giving me occasion to
344  wonder much, how many Courts there might be in the gross, and how
345  long it would take to understand them all. Besides these, there
346  were sundry immense manuscript Books of Evidence taken on
347  affidavit, strongly bound, and tied together in massive sets, a set
348  to each cause, as if every cause were a history in ten or twenty
349  volumes. All this looked tolerably expensive, I thought, and gave
350  me an agreeable notion of a proctor's business. I was casting my
351  eyes with increasing complacency over these and many similar
352  objects, when hasty footsteps were heard in the room outside, and
353  Mr. Spenlow, in a black gown trimmed with white fur, came hurrying
354  in, taking off his hat as he came.

355       He was a little light-haired gentleman, with undeniable boots, and
356  the stiffest of white cravats and shirt-collars. He was buttoned
357  up, mighty trim and tight, and must have taken a great deal of
358  pains with his whiskers, which were accurately curled. His gold
359  watch-chain was so massive, that a fancy came across me, that he
360  ought to have a sinewy golden arm, to draw it out with, like those
361  which are put up over the goldbeaters' shops. He was got up with
362  such care, and was so stiff, that he could hardly bend himself;
363  being obliged, when he glanced at some papers on his desk, after
364  sitting down in his chair, to move his whole body, from the bottom
365  of his spine, like Punch.

366       I had previously been presented by my aunt, and had been
367  courteously received. He now said:

368       'And so, Mr. Copperfield, you think of entering into our
369  profession? I casually mentioned to Miss Trotwood, when I had the
370  pleasure of an interview with her the other day,' - with another
371  inclination of his body - Punch again - 'that there was a vacancy
372  here. Miss Trotwood was good enough to mention that she had a
373  nephew who was her peculiar care, and for whom she was seeking to
374  provide genteelly in life. That nephew, I believe, I have now the
375  pleasure of' - Punch again.
376  I bowed my acknowledgements, and said, my aunt had mentioned to me
377  that there was that opening, and that I believed I should like it
378  very much. That I was strongly inclined to like it, and had taken
379  immediately to the proposal. That I could not absolutely pledge
380  myself to like it, until I knew something more about it. That
381  although it was little else than a matter of form, I presumed I
382  should have an opportunity of trying how I liked it, before I bound
383  myself to it irrevocably.

384       'Oh surely! surely!' said Mr. Spenlow. 'We always, in this house,
385  propose a month - an initiatory month. I should be happy, myself,
386  to propose two months - three - an indefinite period, in fact - but
387  I have a partner. Mr. Jorkins.'

388       'And the premium, sir,' I returned, 'is a thousand pounds?'

389       'And the premium, Stamp included, is a thousand pounds,' said Mr.
390  Spenlow. 'As I have mentioned to Miss Trotwood, I am actuated by
391  no mercenary considerations; few men are less so, I believe; but
392  Mr. Jorkins has his opinions on these subjects, and I am bound to
393  respect Mr. Jorkins's opinions. Mr. Jorkins thinks a thousand
394  pounds too little, in short.'

395       'I suppose, sir,' said I, still desiring to spare my aunt, 'that it
396  is not the custom here, if an articled clerk were particularly
397  useful, and made himself a perfect master of his profession' - I
398  could not help blushing, this looked so like praising myself - 'I
399  suppose it is not the custom, in the later years of his time, to
400  allow him any -'

401       Mr. Spenlow, by a great effort, just lifted his head far enough out
402  of his cravat to shake it, and answered, anticipating the word
403  'salary':

404       'No. I will not say what consideration I might give to that point
405  myself, Mr. Copperfield, if I were unfettered. Mr. Jorkins is
406  immovable.'

407       I was quite dismayed by the idea of this terrible Jorkins. But I
408  found out afterwards that he was a mild man of a heavy temperament,
409  whose place in the business was to keep himself in the background,
410  and be constantly exhibited by name as the most obdurate and
411  ruthless of men. If a clerk wanted his salary raised, Mr. Jorkins
412  wouldn't listen to such a proposition. If a client were slow to
413  settle his bill of costs, Mr. Jorkins was resolved to have it paid;
414  and however painful these things might be (and always were) to the
415  feelings of Mr. Spenlow, Mr. Jorkins would have his bond. The
416  heart and hand of the good angel Spenlow would have been always
417  open, but for the restraining demon Jorkins. As I have grown
418  older, I think I have had experience of some other houses doing
419  business on the principle of Spenlow and Jorkins!

420       It was settled that I should begin my month's probation as soon as
421  I pleased, and that my aunt need neither remain in town nor return
422  at its expiration, as the articles of agreement, of which I was to
423  be the subject, could easily be sent to her at home for her
424  signature. When we had got so far, Mr. Spenlow offered to take me
425  into Court then and there, and show me what sort of place it was.
426  As I was willing enough to know, we went out with this object,
427  leaving my aunt behind; who would trust herself, she said, in no
428  such place, and who, I think, regarded all Courts of Law as a sort
429  of powder-mills that might blow up at any time.

430       Mr. Spenlow conducted me through a paved courtyard formed of grave
431  brick houses, which I inferred, from the Doctors' names upon the
432  doors, to be the official abiding-places of the learned advocates
433  of whom Steerforth had told me; and into a large dull room, not
434  unlike a chapel to my thinking, on the left hand. The upper part
435  of this room was fenced off from the rest; and there, on the two
436  sides of a raised platform of the horse-shoe form, sitting on easy
437  old-fashioned dining-room chairs, were sundry gentlemen in red
438  gowns and grey wigs, whom I found to be the Doctors aforesaid.
439  Blinking over a little desk like a pulpit-desk, in the curve of the
440  horse-shoe, was an old gentleman, whom, if I had seen him in an
441  aviary, I should certainly have taken for an owl, but who, I
442  learned, was the presiding judge. In the space within the
443  horse-shoe, lower than these, that is to say, on about the level of
444  the floor, were sundry other gentlemen, of Mr. Spenlow's rank, and
445  dressed like him in black gowns with white fur upon them, sitting
446  at a long green table. Their cravats were in general stiff, I
447  thought, and their looks haughty; but in this last respect I
448  presently conceived I had done them an injustice, for when two or
449  three of them had to rise and answer a question of the presiding
450  dignitary, I never saw anything more sheepish. The public,
451  represented by a boy with a comforter, and a shabby-genteel man
452  secretly eating crumbs out of his coat pockets, was warming itself
453  at a stove in the centre of the Court. The languid stillness of
454  the place was only broken by the chirping of this fire and by the
455  voice of one of the Doctors, who was wandering slowly through a
456  perfect library of evidence, and stopping to put up, from time to
457  time, at little roadside inns of argument on the journey.
458  Altogether, I have never, on any occasion, made one at such a
459  cosey, dosey, old-fashioned, time-forgotten, sleepy-headed little
460  family-party in all my life; and I felt it would be quite a
461  soothing opiate to belong to it in any character - except perhaps
462  as a suitor.

463       Very well satisfied with the dreamy nature of this retreat, I
464  informed Mr. Spenlow that I had seen enough for that time, and we
465  rejoined my aunt; in company with whom I presently departed from
466  the Commons, feeling very young when I went out of Spenlow and
467  Jorkins's, on account of the clerks poking one another with their
468  pens to point me out.

469       We arrived at Lincoln's Inn Fields without any new adventures,
470  except encountering an unlucky donkey in a costermonger's cart, who
471  suggested painful associations to my aunt. We had another long
472  talk about my plans, when we were safely housed; and as I knew she
473  was anxious to get home, and, between fire, food, and pickpockets,
474  could never be considered at her ease for half-an-hour in London,
475  I urged her not to be uncomfortable on my account, but to leave me
476  to take care of myself.

477       'I have not been here a week tomorrow, without considering that
478  too, my dear,' she returned. 'There is a furnished little set of
479  chambers to be let in the Adelphi, Trot, which ought to suit you to
480  a marvel.'

481       With this brief introduction, she produced from her pocket an
482  advertisement, carefully cut out of a newspaper, setting forth that
483  in Buckingham Street in the Adelphi there was to be let furnished,
484  with a view of the river, a singularly desirable, and compact set
485  of chambers, forming a genteel residence for a young gentleman, a
486  member of one of the Inns of Court, or otherwise, with immediate
487  possession. Terms moderate, and could be taken for a month only,
488  if required.

489       'Why, this is the very thing, aunt!' said I, flushed with the
490  possible dignity of living in chambers.

491       'Then come,' replied my aunt, immediately resuming the bonnet she
492  had a minute before laid aside. 'We'll go and look at 'em.'

493       Away we went. The advertisement directed us to apply to Mrs. Crupp
494  on the premises, and we rung the area bell, which we supposed to
495  communicate with Mrs. Crupp. It was not until we had rung three or
496  four times that we could prevail on Mrs. Crupp to communicate with
497  us, but at last she appeared, being a stout lady with a flounce of
498  flannel petticoat below a nankeen gown.

499       'Let us see these chambers of yours, if you please, ma'am,' said my
500  aunt.

501       'For this gentleman?' said Mrs. Crupp, feeling in her pocket for
502  her keys.

503       'Yes, for my nephew,' said my aunt.

504       'And a sweet set they is for sich!' said Mrs. Crupp.

505       So we went upstairs.

506       They were on the top of the house - a great point with my aunt,
507  being near the fire-escape - and consisted of a little half-blind
508  entry where you could see hardly anything, a little stone-blind
509  pantry where you could see nothing at all, a sitting-room, and a
510  bedroom. The furniture was rather faded, but quite good enough for
511  me; and, sure enough, the river was outside the windows.

512       As I was delighted with the place, my aunt and Mrs. Crupp withdrew
513  into the pantry to discuss the terms, while I remained on the
514  sitting-room sofa, hardly daring to think it possible that I could
515  be destined to live in such a noble residence. After a single
516  combat of some duration they returned, and I saw, to my joy, both
517  in Mrs. Crupp's countenance and in my aunt's, that the deed was
518  done.

519       'Is it the last occupant's furniture?' inquired my aunt.

520       'Yes, it is, ma'am,' said Mrs. Crupp.

521       'What's become of him?' asked my aunt.

522       Mrs. Crupp was taken with a troublesome cough, in the midst of
523  which she articulated with much difficulty. 'He was took ill here,
524  ma'am, and - ugh! ugh! ugh! dear me! - and he died!'

525       'Hey! What did he die of?' asked my aunt.

526       'Well, ma'am, he died of drink,' said Mrs. Crupp, in confidence.
527  'And smoke.'

528       'Smoke? You don't mean chimneys?' said my aunt.

529       'No, ma'am,' returned Mrs. Crupp. 'Cigars and pipes.'

530       'That's not catching, Trot, at any rate,' remarked my aunt, turning
531  to me.

532       'No, indeed,' said I.

533       In short, my aunt, seeing how enraptured I was with the premises,
534  took them for a month, with leave to remain for twelve months when
535  that time was out. Mrs. Crupp was to find linen, and to cook;
536  every other necessary was already provided; and Mrs. Crupp
537  expressly intimated that she should always yearn towards me as a
538  son. I was to take possession the day after tomorrow, and Mrs.
539  Crupp said, thank Heaven she had now found summun she could care
540  for!

541       On our way back, my aunt informed me how she confidently trusted
542  that the life I was now to lead would make me firm and
543  self-reliant, which was all I wanted. She repeated this several
544  times next day, in the intervals of our arranging for the
545  transmission of my clothes and books from Mr. Wickfield's; relative
546  to which, and to all my late holiday, I wrote a long letter to
547  Agnes, of which my aunt took charge, as she was to leave on the
548  succeeding day. Not to lengthen these particulars, I need only
549  add, that she made a handsome provision for all my possible wants
550  during my month of trial; that Steerforth, to my great
551  disappointment and hers too, did not make his appearance before she
552  went away; that I saw her safely seated in the Dover coach,
553  exulting in the coming discomfiture of the vagrant donkeys, with
554  Janet at her side; and that when the coach was gone, I turned my
555  face to the Adelphi, pondering on the old days when I used to roam
556  about its subterranean arches, and on the happy changes which had
557  brought me to the surface.

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