‘You’re a partner yourself, you know,’ returned my aunt, ‘and that’s about enough for you, I expect. How do you find yourself, sir?’
In acknowledgement of this question, addressed to him with extraordinary curtness, Mr. Heep, uncomfortably clutching the blue bag he carried, replied that he was pretty well, he thanked my aunt, and hoped she was the same.
‘And you, Master—I should say, Mister Copperfield,’ pursued Uriah. ‘I hope I see you well! I am rejoiced to see you, Mister Copperfield, even under present circumstances.’ I believed that; for he seemed to relish them very much. ‘Present circumstances is not what your friends would wish for you, Mister Copperfield, but it isn’t money makes the man: it’s—I am really unequal with my umble powers to express what it is,’ said Uriah, with a fawning jerk, ‘but it isn’t money!’
Here he shook hands with me: not in the common way, but standing at a good distance from me, and lifting my hand up and down like a pump handle, that he was a little afraid of.
‘And how do you think we are looking, Master Copperfield,—I should say, Mister?’ fawned Uriah. ‘Don’t you find Mr. Wickfield blooming, sir? Years don’t tell much in our firm, Master Copperfield, except in raising up the umble, namely, mother and self—and in developing,’ he added, as an afterthought, ‘the beautiful, namely, Miss Agnes.’
He jerked himself about, after this compliment, in such an intolerable manner, that my aunt, who had sat looking straight at him, lost all patience.
‘Deuce take the man!’ said my aunt, sternly, ‘what’s he about? Don’t be galvanic, sir!’
‘I ask your pardon, Miss Trotwood,’ returned Uriah; ‘I’m aware you’re nervous.’
‘Go along with you, sir!’ said my aunt, anything but appeased. ‘Don’t presume to say so! I am nothing of the sort. If you’re an eel, sir, conduct yourself like one. If you’re a man, control your limbs, sir! Good God!’ said my aunt, with great indignation, ‘I am not going to be serpentined and corkscrewed out of my senses!’
Mr. Heep was rather abashed, as most people might have been, by this explosion; which derived great additional force from the indignant manner in which my aunt afterwards moved in her chair, and shook her head as if she were making snaps or bounces at him. But he said to me aside in a meek voice: