“Well, then, don’t go till next day. I wanted you to come and stay a few days with us. Here I am, on purpose to bid you, and you fly off to Yarmouth!”
“You are a nice fellow to talk of flying off, Steerforth, who are always running wild on some unknown expedition or other!”
He looked at me for a moment without speaking, and then rejoined, still holding me as before, and giving me a shake:
“Come! Say the next day, and pass as much of to-morrow as you can with us! Who knows when we may meet again, else? Come! Say the next day! I want you to stand between Rosa Dartle and me, and keep us asunder.”
“Would you love each other too much, without me?”
“Yes; or hate,” laughed Steerforth; “no matter which. Come! Say the next day!”
I said the next day; and he put on his great-coat, and lighted his cigar, and set off to walk home. Finding him in this intention, I put on my own great-coat (but did not light my own cigar, having had enough of that for one while) and walked with him as far as the open road: a dull road, then, at night. He was in great spirits all the way; and when we parted, and I looked after him going so gallantly and airily homeward, I thought of his saying, “Ride on over all obstacles, and win the race!” and wished, for the first time, that he had some worthy race to run.
I was undressing in my own room, when Mr. Micawber’s letter tumbled on the floor. Thus reminded of it, I broke the seal and read as follows. It was dated an hour and a half before dinner. I am not sure whether I have mentioned that, when Mr. Micawber was at any particularly desperate crisis, he used a sort of legal phraseology: which he seemed to think equivalent to winding up his affairs.
“Sir—for I dare not say, my dear Copperfield,
“It is expedient that I should inform you that the undersigned is Crushed. Some flickering efforts to spare you the premature knowledge of his calamitous position, you may observe in him this day; but hope has sunk beneath the horizon, and the undersigned is Crushed.