“I am improving my legal knowledge, Master Copperfield,” said Uriah. “I am going through Tidd’s Practice. Oh, what a writer Mr. Tidd is, Master Copperfield!”
My stool was such a tower of observation, that as I watched him reading on again, after this rapturous exclamation, and following up the lines with his fore-finger, I observed that his nostrils, which were thin and pointed, with sharp dints in them, had a singular and most uncomfortable way of expanding and contracting themselves—that they seemed to twinkle, instead of his eyes, which hardly ever twinkled at all.
“I suppose you are quite a great lawyer?” I said, after looking at him for some time.
“Me, Master Copperfield?” said Uriah. “Oh, no! I’m a very umble person.”
It was no fancy of mine about his hands, I observed; for he frequently ground the palms against each other as if to squeeze them dry and warm, besides often wiping them, in a stealthy way, on his pocket-handkerchief.
“I am well aware that I am the umblest person going,” said Uriah Heep, modestly; “let the other be where he may. My mother is likewise a very umble person. We live in a numble abode, Master Copperfield, but have much to be thankful for. My father’s former calling was umble. He was a sexton.”
“What is he now?” I asked.
“He is a partaker of glory at present, Master Copperfield,” said Uriah Heep. “But we have much to be thankful for. How much have I to be thankful for, in living with Mr. Wickfield!”
I asked Uriah if he had been with Mr. Wickfield long?
“I have been with him, going on four year, Master Copperfield,” said Uriah; shutting up his book, after carefully marking the place where he had left off. “Since a year after my father’s death. How much have I to be thankful for, in that! How much have I to be thankful for, in Mr. Wickfield’s kind intention to give me my articles, which would otherwise not lay within the umble means of mother and self!”