‘Ma’am,’ returned Mr. Micawber, with a bow, ‘you are very obliging: and what are you doing, Copperfield? Still in the wine trade?’
I was excessively anxious to get Mr. Micawber away; and replied, with my hat in my hand, and a very red face, I have no doubt, that I was a pupil at Doctor Strong’s.
‘A pupil?’ said Mr. Micawber, raising his eyebrows. ‘I am extremely happy to hear it. Although a mind like my friend Copperfield’s’—to Uriah and Mrs. Heep—‘does not require that cultivation which, without his knowledge of men and things, it would require, still it is a rich soil teeming with latent vegetation—in short,’ said Mr. Micawber, smiling, in another burst of confidence, ‘it is an intellect capable of getting up the classics to any extent.’
Uriah, with his long hands slowly twining over one another, made a ghastly writhe from the waist upwards, to express his concurrence in this estimation of me.
‘Shall we go and see Mrs. Micawber, sir?’ I said, to get Mr. Micawber away.
‘If you will do her that favour, Copperfield,’ replied Mr. Micawber, rising. ‘I have no scruple in saying, in the presence of our friends here, that I am a man who has, for some years, contended against the pressure of pecuniary difficulties.’ I knew he was certain to say something of this kind; he always would be so boastful about his difficulties. ‘Sometimes I have risen superior to my difficulties. Sometimes my difficulties have—in short, have floored me. There have been times when I have administered a succession of facers to them; there have been times when they have been too many for me, and I have given in, and said to Mrs. Micawber, in the words of Cato, “Plato, thou reasonest well. It’s all up now. I can show fight no more.” But at no time of my life,’ said Mr. Micawber, ‘have I enjoyed a higher degree of satisfaction than in pouring my griefs (if I may describe difficulties, chiefly arising out of warrants of attorney and promissory notes at two and four months, by that word) into the bosom of my friend Copperfield.’
Mr. Micawber closed this handsome tribute by saying, ‘Mr. Heep! Good evening. Mrs. Heep! Your servant,’ and then walking out with me in his most fashionable manner, making a good deal of noise on the pavement with his shoes, and humming a tune as we went.
It was a little inn where Mr. Micawber put up, and he occupied a little room in it, partitioned off from the commercial room, and strongly flavoured with tobacco-smoke. I think it was over the kitchen, because a warm greasy smell appeared to come up through the chinks in the floor, and there was a flabby perspiration on the walls. I know it was near the bar, on account of the smell of spirits and jingling of glasses. Here, recumbent on a small sofa, underneath a picture of a race-horse, with her head close to the fire, and her feet pushing the mustard off the dumb-waiter at the other end of the room, was Mrs. Micawber, to whom Mr. Micawber entered first, saying, ‘My dear, allow me to introduce to you a pupil of Doctor Strong’s.’
I noticed, by the by, that although Mr. Micawber was just as much confused as ever about my age and standing, he always remembered, as a genteel thing, that I was a pupil of Doctor Strong’s.
Mrs. Micawber was amazed, but very glad to see me. I was very glad to see her too, and, after an affectionate greeting on both sides, sat down on the small sofa near her.