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I BEGIN LIFE ON MY OWN ACCOUNT, AND DON'T LIKE
IT
I know enough of the world now, to have almost lost the capacity
of being much surprised by anything; but it is matter of some surprise
to me, even now, that I can have been so easily thrown away at such
an age. A child of excellent abilities, and with strong powers of
observation, quick, eager, delicate, and soon hurt bodily or mentally,
it seems wonderful to me that nobody should have made any sign in
my behalf. But none was made; and I became, at ten years old, a
little labouring hind in the service of Murdstone and Grinby.
Murdstone and Grinby's warehouse was at the waterside. It was
down in Blackfriars. Modern improvements have altered the place;
but it was the last house at the bottom of a narrow street, curving
down hill to the river, with some stairs at the end, where people
took boat. It was a crazy old house with a wharf of its own, abutting
on the water when the tide was in, and on the mud when the tide
was out, and literally overrun with rats. Its panelled rooms, discoloured
with the dirt and smoke of a hundred years, I dare say; its decaying
floors and staircase; the squeaking and scuffling of the old grey
rats down in the cellars; and the dirt and rottenness of the place;
are things, not of many years ago, in my mind, but of the present
instant. They are all before me, just as they were in the evil hour
when I went among them for the first time, with my trembling hand
in Mr. Quinion's.
Murdstone and Grinby's trade was among a good many kinds of people,
but an important branch of it was the supply of wines and spirits
to certain packet ships. I forget now where they chiefly went, but
I think there were some among them that made voyages both to the
East and West Indies. I know that a great many empty bottles were
one of the consequences of this traffic, and that certain men and
boys were employed to examine them against the light, and reject
those that were flawed, and to rinse and wash them. When the empty
bottles ran short, there were labels to be pasted on full ones,
or corks to be fitted to them, or seals to be put upon the corks,
or finished bottles to be packed in casks. All this work was my
work, and of the boys employed upon it I was one.
There were three or four of us, counting me. My working place
was established in a corner of the warehouse, where Mr. Quinion
could see me, when he chose to stand up on the bottom rail of his
stool in the counting-house, and look at me through a window above
the desk. Hither, on the first morning of my so auspiciously beginning
life on my own account, the oldest of the regular boys was summoned
to show me my business. His name was Mick Walker, and he wore a
ragged apron and a paper cap. He informed me that his father was
a bargeman, and walked, in a black velvet head-dress, in the Lord
Mayor's Show. He also informed me that our principal associate would
be another boy whom he introduced by the - to me - extraordinary
name of Mealy Potatoes. I discovered, however, that this youth had
not been christened by that name, but that it had been bestowed
upon him in the warehouse, on account of his complexion, which was
pale or mealy. Mealy's father was a waterman, who had the additional
distinction of being a fireman, and was engaged as such at one of
the large theatres; where some young relation of Mealy's - I think
his little sister - did Imps in the Pantomimes.
No words can express the secret agony of my soul as I sunk into
this companionship; compared these henceforth everyday associates
with those of my happier childhood - not to say with Steerforth,
Traddles, and the rest of those boys; and felt my hopes of growing
up to be a learned and distinguished man, crushed in my bosom. The
deep remembrance of the sense I had, of being utterly without hope
now; of the shame I felt in my position; of the misery it was to
my young heart to believe that day by day what I had learned, and
thought, and delighted in, and raised my fancy and my emulation
up by, would pass away from me, little by little, never to be brought
back any more; cannot be written. As often as Mick Walker went away
in the course of that forenoon, I mingled my tears with the water
in which I was washing the bottles; and sobbed as if there were
a flaw in my own breast, and it were in danger of bursting.
The counting-house clock was at half past twelve, and there was
general preparation for going to dinner, when Mr. Quinion tapped
at the counting-house window, and beckoned to me to go in. I went
in, and found there a stoutish, middle-aged person, in a brown surtout
and black tights and shoes, with no more hair upon his head (which
was a large one, and very shining) than there is upon an egg, and
with a very extensive face, which he turned full upon me. His clothes
were shabby, but he had an imposing shirt-collar on. He carried
a jaunty sort of a stick, with a large pair of rusty tassels to
it; and a quizzing-glass hung outside his coat, - for ornament,
I afterwards found, as he very seldom looked through it, and couldn't
see anything when he did.
'This,' said Mr. Quinion, in allusion to myself, 'is he.'
'This,' said the stranger, with a certain condescending roll
in his voice, and a certain indescribable air of doing something
genteel, which impressed me very much, 'is Master Copperfield. I
hope I see you well, sir?'
I said I was very well, and hoped he was. I was sufficiently
ill at ease, Heaven knows; but it was not in my nature to complain
much at that time of my life, so I said I was very well, and hoped
he was.
'I am,' said the stranger, 'thank Heaven, quite well. I have
received a letter from Mr. Murdstone, in which he mentions that
he would desire me to receive into an apartment in the rear of my
house, which is at present unoccupied - and is, in short, to be
let as a - in short,' said the stranger, with a smile and in a burst
of confidence, 'as a bedroom - the young beginner whom I have now
the pleasure to -' and the stranger waved his hand, and settled
his chin in his shirt-collar.
'This is Mr. Micawber,' said Mr. Quinion to me.
'Ahem!' said the stranger, 'that is my name.'
'Mr. Micawber,' said Mr. Quinion, 'is known to Mr. Murdstone.
He takes orders for us on commission, when he can get any. He has
been written to by Mr. Murdstone, on the subject of your lodgings,
and he will receive you as a lodger.'
'My address,' said Mr. Micawber, 'is Windsor Terrace, City Road.
I - in short,' said Mr. Micawber, with the same genteel air, and
in another burst of confidence - 'I live there.'
I made him a bow.
'Under the impression,' said Mr. Micawber, 'that your peregrinations
in this metropolis have not as yet been extensive, and that you
might have some difficulty in penetrating the arcana of the Modern
Babylon in the direction of the City Road, - in short,' said Mr.
Micawber, in another burst of confidence, 'that you might lose yourself
- I shall be happy to call this evening, and install you in the
knowledge of the nearest way.'
I thanked him with all my heart, for it was friendly in him to
offer to take that trouble.
'At what hour,' said Mr. Micawber, 'shall I -'
'At about eight,' said Mr. Quinion.
'At about eight,' said Mr. Micawber. 'I beg to wish you good
day, Mr. Quinion. I will intrude no longer.'
So he put on his hat, and went out with his cane under his arm:
very upright, and humming a tune when he was clear of the counting-house.
Mr. Quinion then formally engaged me to be as useful as I could
in the warehouse of Murdstone and Grinby, at a salary, I think,
of six shillings a week. I am not clear whether it was six or seven.
I am inclined to believe, from my uncertainty on this head, that
it was six at first and seven afterwards. He paid me a week down
(from his own pocket, I believe), and I gave Mealy sixpence out
of it to get my trunk carried to Windsor Terrace that night: it
being too heavy for my strength, small as it was. I paid sixpence
more for my dinner, which was a meat pie and a turn at a neighbouring
pump; and passed the hour which was allowed for that meal, in walking
about the streets.
At the appointed time in the evening, Mr. Micawber reappeared.
I washed my hands and face, to do the greater honour to his gentility,
and we walked to our house, as I suppose I must now call it, together;
Mr. Micawber impressing the name of streets, and the shapes of corner
houses upon me, as we went along, that I might find my way back,
easily, in the morning.
Arrived at this house in Windsor Terrace (which I noticed was
shabby like himself, but also, like himself, made all the show it
could), he presented me to Mrs. Micawber, a thin and faded lady,
not at all young, who was sitting in the parlour (the first floor
was altogether unfurnished, and the blinds were kept down to delude
the neighbours), with a baby at her breast. This baby was one of
twins; and I may remark here that I hardly ever, in all my experience
of the family, saw both the twins detached from Mrs. Micawber at
the same time. One of them was always taking refreshment.
There were two other children; Master Micawber, aged about four,
and Miss Micawber, aged about three. These, and a dark-complexioned
young woman, with a habit of snorting, who was servant to the family,
and informed me, before half an hour had expired, that she was 'a
Orfling', and came from St. Luke's workhouse, in the neighbourhood,
completed the establishment. My room was at the top of the house,
at the back: a close chamber; stencilled all over with an ornament
which my young imagination represented as a blue muffin; and very
scantily furnished.
'I never thought,' said Mrs. Micawber, when she came up, twin
and all, to show me the apartment, and sat down to take breath,
'before I was married, when I lived with papa and mama, that I should
ever find it necessary to take a lodger. But Mr. Micawber being
in difficulties, all considerations of private feeling must give
way.'
I said: 'Yes, ma'am.'
'Mr. Micawber's difficulties are almost overwhelming just at
present,' said Mrs. Micawber; 'and whether it is possible to bring
him through them, I don't know. When I lived at home with papa and
mama, I really should have hardly understood what the word meant,
in the sense in which I now employ it, but experientia does it,
- as papa used to say.'
I cannot satisfy myself whether she told me that Mr. Micawber
had been an officer in the Marines, or whether I have imagined it.
I only know that I believe to this hour that he WAS in the Marines
once upon a time, without knowing why. He was a sort of town traveller
for a number of miscellaneous houses, now; but made little or nothing
of it, I am afraid.
'If Mr. Micawber's creditors will not give him time,' said Mrs.
Micawber, 'they must take the consequences; and the sooner they
bring it to an issue the better. Blood cannot be obtained from a
stone, neither can anything on account be obtained at present (not
to mention law expenses) from Mr. Micawber.'
I never can quite understand whether my precocious self-dependence
confused Mrs. Micawber in reference to my age, or whether she was
so full of the subject that she would have talked about it to the
very twins if there had been nobody else to communicate with, but
this was the strain in which she began, and she went on accordingly
all the time I knew her.
Poor Mrs. Micawber! She said she had tried to exert herself,
and so, I have no doubt, she had. The centre of the street door
was perfectly covered with a great brass-plate, on which was engraved
'Mrs. Micawber's Boarding Establishment for Young Ladies': but I
never found that any young lady had ever been to school there; or
that any young lady ever came, or proposed to come; or that the
least preparation was ever made to receive any young lady. The only
visitors I ever saw, or heard of, were creditors. THEY used to come
at all hours, and some of them were quite ferocious. One dirty-faced
man, I think he was a boot-maker, used to edge himself into the
passage as early as seven o'clock in the morning, and call up the
stairs to Mr. Micawber - 'Come! You ain't out yet, you know. Pay
us, will you? Don't hide, you know; that's mean. I wouldn't be mean
if I was you. Pay us, will you? You just pay us, d'ye hear? Come!'
Receiving no answer to these taunts, he would mount in his wrath
to the words 'swindlers' and 'robbers'; and these being ineffectual
too, would sometimes go to the extremity of crossing the street,
and roaring up at the windows of the second floor, where he knew
Mr. Micawber was. At these times, Mr. Micawber would be transported
with grief and mortification, even to the length (as I was once
made aware by a scream from his wife) of making motions at himself
with a razor; but within half-an-hour afterwards, he would polish
up his shoes with extraordinary pains, and go out, humming a tune
with a greater air of gentility than ever. Mrs. Micawber was quite
as elastic. I have known her to be thrown into fainting fits by
the king's taxes at three o'clock, and to eat lamb chops, breaded,
and drink warm ale (paid for with two tea-spoons that had gone to
the pawnbroker's) at four. On one occasion, when an execution had
just been put in, coming home through some chance as early as six
o'clock, I saw her lying (of course with a twin) under the grate
in a swoon, with her hair all torn about her face; but I never knew
her more cheerful than she was, that very same night, over a veal
cutlet before the kitchen fire, telling me stories about her papa
and mama, and the company they used to keep.
In this house, and with this family, I passed my leisure time.
My own exclusive breakfast of a penny loaf and a pennyworth of milk,
I provided myself. I kept another small loaf, and a modicum of cheese,
on a particular shelf of a particular cupboard, to make my supper
on when I came back at night. This made a hole in the six or seven
shillings, I know well; and I was out at the warehouse all day,
and had to support myself on that money all the week. From Monday
morning until Saturday night, I had no advice, no counsel, no encouragement,
no consolation, no assistance, no support, of any kind, from anyone,
that I can call to mind, as I hope to go to heaven!
I was so young and childish, and so little qualified - how could
I be otherwise? - to undertake the whole charge of my own existence,
that often, in going to Murdstone and Grinby's, of a morning, I
could not resist the stale pastry put out for sale at half-price
at the pastrycooks' doors, and spent in that the money I should
have kept for my dinner. Then, I went without my dinner, or bought
a roll or a slice of pudding. I remember two pudding shops, between
which I was divided, according to my finances. One was in a court
close to St. Martin's Church - at the back of the church, - which
is now removed altogether. The pudding at that shop was made of
currants, and was rather a special pudding, but was dear, twopennyworth
not being larger than a pennyworth of more ordinary pudding. A good
shop for the latter was in the Strand - somewhere in that part which
has been rebuilt since. It was a stout pale pudding, heavy and flabby,
and with great flat raisins in it, stuck in whole at wide distances
apart. It came up hot at about my time every day, and many a day
did I dine off it. When I dined regularly and handsomely, I had
a saveloy and a penny loaf, or a fourpenny plate of red beef from
a cook's shop; or a plate of bread and cheese and a glass of beer,
from a miserable old public-house opposite our place of business,
called the Lion, or the Lion and something else that I have forgotten.
Once, I remember carrying my own bread (which I had brought from
home in the morning) under my arm, wrapped in a piece of paper,
like a book, and going to a famous alamode beef-house near Drury
Lane, and ordering a 'small plate' of that delicacy to eat with
it. What the waiter thought of such a strange little apparition
coming in all alone, I don't know; but I can see him now, staring
at me as I ate my dinner, and bringing up the other waiter to look.
I gave him a halfpenny for himself, and I wish he hadn't taken it.
We had half-an-hour, I think, for tea. When I had money enough,
I used to get half-a-pint of ready-made coffee and a slice of bread
and butter. When I had none, I used to look at a venison shop in
Fleet Street; or I have strolled, at such a time, as far as Covent
Garden Market, and stared at the pineapples. I was fond of wandering
about the Adelphi, because it was a mysterious place, with those
dark arches. I see myself emerging one evening from some of these
arches, on a little public-house close to the river, with an open
space before it, where some coal-heavers were dancing; to look at
whom I sat down upon a bench. I wonder what they thought of me!
I was such a child, and so little, that frequently when I went
into the bar of a strange public-house for a glass of ale or porter,
to moisten what I had had for dinner, they were afraid to give it
me. I remember one hot evening I went into the bar of a public-house,
and said to the landlord: 'What is your best - your very best -
ale a glass?' For it was a special occasion. I don't know what.
It may have been my birthday.
'Twopence-halfpenny,' says the landlord, 'is the price of the
Genuine Stunning ale.'
'Then,' says I, producing the money, 'just draw me a glass of
the Genuine Stunning, if you please, with a good head to it.'
The landlord looked at me in return over the bar, from head to
foot, with a strange smile on his face; and instead of drawing the
beer, looked round the screen and said something to his wife. She
came out from behind it, with her work in her hand, and joined him
in surveying me. Here we stand, all three, before me now. The landlord
in his shirt-sleeves, leaning against the bar window-frame; his
wife looking over the little half-door; and I, in some confusion,
looking up at them from outside the partition. They asked me a good
many questions; as, what my name was, how old I was, where I lived,
how I was employed, and how I came there. To all of which, that
I might commit nobody, I invented, I am afraid, appropriate answers.
They served me with the ale, though I suspect it was not the Genuine
Stunning; and the landlord's wife, opening the little half-door
of the bar, and bending down, gave me my money back, and gave me
a kiss that was half admiring and half compassionate, but all womanly
and good, I am sure.
I know I do not exaggerate, unconsciously and unintentionally,
the scantiness of my resources or the difficulties of my life. I
know that if a shilling were given me by Mr. Quinion at any time,
I spent it in a dinner or a tea. I know that I worked, from morning
until night, with common men and boys, a shabby child. I know that
I lounged about the streets, insufficiently and unsatisfactorily
fed. I know that, but for the mercy of God, I might easily have
been, for any care that was taken of me, a little robber or a little
vagabond.
Yet I held some station at Murdstone and Grinby's too. Besides
that Mr. Quinion did what a careless man so occupied, and dealing
with a thing so anomalous, could, to treat me as one upon a different
footing from the rest, I never said, to man or boy, how it was that
I came to be there, or gave the least indication of being sorry
that I was there. That I suffered in secret, and that I suffered
exquisitely, no one ever knew but I. How much I suffered, it is,
as I have said already, utterly beyond my power to tell. But I kept
my own counsel, and I did my work. I knew from the first, that,
if I could not do my work as well as any of the rest, I could not
hold myself above slight and contempt. I soon became at least as
expeditious and as skilful as either of the other boys. Though perfectly
familiar with them, my conduct and manner were different enough
from theirs to place a space between us. They and the men generally
spoke of me as 'the little gent', or 'the young Suffolker.' A certain
man named Gregory, who was foreman of the packers, and another named
Tipp, who was the carman, and wore a red jacket, used to address
me sometimes as 'David': but I think it was mostly when we were
very confidential, and when I had made some efforts to entertain
them, over our work, with some results of the old readings; which
were fast perishing out of my remembrance. Mealy Potatoes uprose
once, and rebelled against my being so distinguished; but Mick Walker
settled him in no time.
My rescue from this kind of existence I considered quite hopeless,
and abandoned, as such, altogether. I am solemnly convinced that
I never for one hour was reconciled to it, or was otherwise than
miserably unhappy; but I bore it; and even to Peggotty, partly for
the love of her and partly for shame, never in any letter (though
many passed between us) revealed the truth.
Mr. Micawber's difficulties were an addition to the distressed
state of my mind. In my forlorn state I became quite attached to
the family, and used to walk about, busy with Mrs. Micawber's calculations
of ways and means, and heavy with the weight of Mr. Micawber's debts.
On a Saturday night, which was my grand treat, - partly because
it was a great thing to walk home with six or seven shillings in
my pocket, looking into the shops and thinking what such a sum would
buy, and partly because I went home early, - Mrs. Micawber would
make the most heart-rending confidences to me; also on a Sunday
morning, when I mixed the portion of tea or coffee I had bought
over-night, in a little shaving-pot, and sat late at my breakfast.
It was nothing at all unusual for Mr. Micawber to sob violently
at the beginning of one of these Saturday night conversations, and
sing about jack's delight being his lovely Nan, towards the end
of it. I have known him come home to supper with a flood of tears,
and a declaration that nothing was now left but a jail; and go to
bed making a calculation of the expense of putting bow-windows to
the house, 'in case anything turned up', which was his favourite
expression. And Mrs. Micawber was just the same.
A curious equality of friendship, originating, I suppose, in
our respective circumstances, sprung up between me and these people,
notwithstanding the ludicrous disparity in our years. But I never
allowed myself to be prevailed upon to accept any invitation to
eat and drink with them out of their stock (knowing that they got
on badly with the butcher and baker, and had often not too much
for themselves), until Mrs. Micawber took me into her entire confidence.
This she did one evening as follows:
'Master Copperfield,' said Mrs. Micawber, 'I make no stranger
of you, and therefore do not hesitate to say that Mr. Micawber's
difficulties are coming to a crisis.'
It made me very miserable to hear it, and I looked at Mrs. Micawber's
red eyes with the utmost sympathy.
'With the exception of the heel of a Dutch cheese - which is
not adapted to the wants of a young family' - said Mrs. Micawber,
'there is really not a scrap of anything in the larder. I was accustomed
to speak of the larder when I lived with papa and mama, and I use
the word almost unconsciously. What I mean to express is, that there
is nothing to eat in the house.'
'Dear me!' I said, in great concern.
I had two or three shillings of my week's money in my pocket
- from which I presume that it must have been on a Wednesday night
when we held this conversation - and I hastily produced them, and
with heartfelt emotion begged Mrs. Micawber to accept of them as
a loan. But that lady, kissing me, and making me put them back in
my pocket, replied that she couldn't think of it.
'No, my dear Master Copperfield,' said she, 'far be it from my
thoughts! But you have a discretion beyond your years, and can render
me another kind of service, if you will; and a service I will thankfully
accept of.'
I begged Mrs. Micawber to name it.
'I have parted with the plate myself,' said Mrs. Micawber. 'Six
tea, two salt, and a pair of sugars, I have at different times borrowed
money on, in secret, with my own hands. But the twins are a great
tie; and to me, with my recollections, of papa and mama, these transactions
are very painful. There are still a few trifles that we could part
with. Mr. Micawber's feelings would never allow him to dispose of
them; and Clickett' - this was the girl from the workhouse - 'being
of a vulgar mind, would take painful liberties if so much confidence
was reposed in her. Master Copperfield, if I might ask you -'
I understood Mrs. Micawber now, and begged her to make use of
me to any extent. I began to dispose of the more portable articles
of property that very evening; and went out on a similar expedition
almost every morning, before I went to Murdstone and Grinby's.
Mr. Micawber had a few books on a little chiffonier, which he
called the library; and those went first. I carried them, one after
another, to a bookstall in the City Road - one part of which, near
our house, was almost all bookstalls and bird shops then - and sold
them for whatever they would bring. The keeper of this bookstall,
who lived in a little house behind it, used to get tipsy every night,
and to be violently scolded by his wife every morning. More than
once, when I went there early, I had audience of him in a turn-up
bedstead, with a cut in his forehead or a black eye, bearing witness
to his excesses over-night (I am afraid he was quarrelsome in his
drink), and he, with a shaking hand, endeavouring to find the needful
shillings in one or other of the pockets of his clothes, which lay
upon the floor, while his wife, with a baby in her arms and her
shoes down at heel, never left off rating him. Sometimes he had
lost his money, and then he would ask me to call again; but his
wife had always got some - had taken his, I dare say, while he was
drunk - and secretly completed the bargain on the stairs, as we
went down together. At the pawnbroker's shop, too, I began to be
very well known. The principal gentleman who officiated behind the
counter, took a good deal of notice of me; and often got me, I recollect,
to decline a Latin noun or adjective, or to conjugate a Latin verb,
in his ear, while he transacted my business. After all these occasions
Mrs. Micawber made a little treat, which was generally a supper;
and there was a peculiar relish in these meals which I well remember.
At last Mr. Micawber's difficulties came to a crisis, and he
was arrested early one morning, and carried over to the King's Bench
Prison in the Borough. He told me, as he went out of the house,
that the God of day had now gone down upon him - and I really thought
his heart was broken and mine too. But I heard, afterwards, that
he was seen to play a lively game at skittles, before noon.
On the first Sunday after he was taken there, I was to go and
see him, and have dinner with him. I was to ask my way to such a
place, and just short of that place I should see such another place,
and just short of that I should see a yard, which I was to cross,
and keep straight on until I saw a turnkey. All this I did; and
when at last I did see a turnkey (poor little fellow that I was!),
and thought how, when Roderick Random was in a debtors' prison,
there was a man there with nothing on him but an old rug, the turnkey
swam before my dimmed eyes and my beating heart.
Mr. Micawber was waiting for me within the gate, and we went
up to his room (top story but one), and cried very much. He solemnly
conjured me, I remember, to take warning by his fate; and to observe
that if a man had twenty pounds a-year for his income, and spent
nineteen pounds nineteen shillings and sixpence, he would be happy,
but that if he spent twenty pounds one he would be miserable. After
which he borrowed a shilling of me for porter, gave me a written
order on Mrs. Micawber for the amount, and put away his pocket-handkerchief,
and cheered up.
We sat before a little fire, with two bricks put within the rusted
grate, one on each side, to prevent its burning too many coals;
until another debtor, who shared the room with Mr. Micawber, came
in from the bakehouse with the loin of mutton which was our joint-stock
repast. Then I was sent up to 'Captain Hopkins' in the room overhead,
with Mr. Micawber's compliments, and I was his young friend, and
would Captain Hopkins lend me a knife and fork.
Captain Hopkins lent me the knife and fork, with his compliments
to Mr. Micawber. There was a very dirty lady in his little room,
and two wan girls, his daughters, with shock heads of hair. I thought
it was better to borrow Captain Hopkins's knife and fork, than Captain
Hopkins's comb. The Captain himself was in the last extremity of
shabbiness, with large whiskers, and an old, old brown great-coat
with no other coat below it. I saw his bed rolled up in a corner;
and what plates and dishes and pots he had, on a shelf; and I divined
(God knows how) that though the two girls with the shock heads of
hair were Captain Hopkins's children, the dirty lady was not married
to Captain Hopkins. My timid station on his threshold was not occupied
more than a couple of minutes at most; but I came down again with
all this in my knowledge, as surely as the knife and fork were in
my hand.
There was something gipsy-like and agreeable in the dinner, after
all. I took back Captain Hopkins's knife and fork early in the afternoon,
and went home to comfort Mrs. Micawber with an account of my visit.
She fainted when she saw me return, and made a little jug of egg-hot
afterwards to console us while we talked it over.
I don't know how the household furniture came to be sold for
the family benefit, or who sold it, except that I did not. Sold
it was, however, and carried away in a van; except the bed, a few
chairs, and the kitchen table. With these possessions we encamped,
as it were, in the two parlours of the emptied house in Windsor
Terrace; Mrs. Micawber, the children, the Orfling, and myself; and
lived in those rooms night and day. I have no idea for how long,
though it seems to me for a long time. At last Mrs. Micawber resolved
to move into the prison, where Mr. Micawber had now secured a room
to himself. So I took the key of the house to the landlord, who
was very glad to get it; and the beds were sent over to the King's
Bench, except mine, for which a little room was hired outside the
walls in the neighbourhood of that Institution, very much to my
satisfaction, since the Micawbers and I had become too used to one
another, in our troubles, to part. The Orfling was likewise accommodated
with an inexpensive lodging in the same neighbourhood. Mine was
a quiet back-garret with a sloping roof, commanding a pleasant prospect
of a timberyard; and when I took possession of it, with the reflection
that Mr. Micawber's troubles had come to a crisis at last, I thought
it quite a paradise.
All this time I was working at Murdstone and Grinby's in the
same common way, and with the same common companions, and with the
same sense of unmerited degradation as at first. But I never, happily
for me no doubt, made a single acquaintance, or spoke to any of
the many boys whom I saw daily in going to the warehouse, in coming
from it, and in prowling about the streets at meal-times. I led
the same secretly unhappy life; but I led it in the same lonely,
self-reliant manner. The only changes I am conscious of are, firstly,
that I had grown more shabby, and secondly, that I was now relieved
of much of the weight of Mr. and Mrs. Micawber's cares; for some
relatives or friends had engaged to help them at their present pass,
and they lived more comfortably in the prison than they had lived
for a long while out of it. I used to breakfast with them now, in
virtue of some arrangement, of which I have forgotten the details.
I forget, too, at what hour the gates were opened in the morning,
admitting of my going in; but I know that I was often up at six
o'clock, and that my favourite lounging-place in the interval was
old London Bridge, where I was wont to sit in one of the stone recesses,
watching the people going by, or to look over the balustrades at
the sun shining in the water, and lighting up the golden flame on
the top of the Monument. The Orfling met me here sometimes, to be
told some astonishing fictions respecting the wharves and the Tower;
of which I can say no more than that I hope I believed them myself.
In the evening I used to go back to the prison, and walk up and
down the parade with Mr. Micawber; or play casino with Mrs. Micawber,
and hear reminiscences of her papa and mama. Whether Mr. Murdstone
knew where I was, I am unable to say. I never told them at Murdstone
and Grinby's.
Mr. Micawber's affairs, although past their crisis, were very
much involved by reason of a certain 'Deed', of which I used to
hear a great deal, and which I suppose, now, to have been some former
composition with his creditors, though I was so far from being clear
about it then, that I am conscious of having confounded it with
those demoniacal parchments which are held to have, once upon a
time, obtained to a great extent in Germany. At last this document
appeared to be got out of the way, somehow; at all events it ceased
to be the rock-ahead it had been; and Mrs. Micawber informed me
that 'her family' had decided that Mr. Micawber should apply for
his release under the Insolvent Debtors Act, which would set him
free, she expected, in about six weeks.
'And then,' said Mr. Micawber, who was present, 'I have no doubt
I shall, please Heaven, begin to be beforehand with the world, and
to live in a perfectly new manner, if - in short, if anything turns
up.'
By way of going in for anything that might be on the cards, I
call to mind that Mr. Micawber, about this time, composed a petition
to the House of Commons, praying for an alteration in the law of
imprisonment for debt. I set down this remembrance here, because
it is an instance to myself of the manner in which I fitted my old
books to my altered life, and made stories for myself, out of the
streets, and out of men and women; and how some main points in the
character I shall unconsciously develop, I suppose, in writing my
life, were gradually forming all this while.
There was a club in the prison, in which Mr. Micawber, as a gentleman,
was a great authority. Mr. Micawber had stated his idea of this
petition to the club, and the club had strongly approved of the
same. Wherefore Mr. Micawber (who was a thoroughly good-natured
man, and as active a creature about everything but his own affairs
as ever existed, and never so happy as when he was busy about something
that could never be of any profit to him) set to work at the petition,
invented it, engrossed it on an immense sheet of paper, spread it
out on a table, and appointed a time for all the club, and all within
the walls if they chose, to come up to his room and sign it.
When I heard of this approaching ceremony, I was so anxious to
see them all come in, one after another, though I knew the greater
part of them already, and they me, that I got an hour's leave of
absence from Murdstone and Grinby's, and established myself in a
corner for that purpose. As many of the principal members of the
club as could be got into the small room without filling it, supported
Mr. Micawber in front of the petition, while my old friend Captain
Hopkins (who had washed himself, to do honour to so solemn an occasion)
stationed himself close to it, to read it to all who were unacquainted
with its contents. The door was then thrown open, and the general
population began to come in, in a long file: several waiting outside,
while one entered, affixed his signature, and went out. To everybody
in succession, Captain Hopkins said: 'Have you read it?' - 'No.'
- 'Would you like to hear it read?' If he weakly showed the least
disposition to hear it, Captain Hopkins, in a loud sonorous voice,
gave him every word of it. The Captain would have read it twenty
thousand times, if twenty thousand people would have heard him,
one by one. I remember a certain luscious roll he gave to such phrases
as 'The people's representatives in Parliament assembled,' 'Your
petitioners therefore humbly approach your honourable house,' 'His
gracious Majesty's unfortunate subjects,' as if the words were something
real in his mouth, and delicious to taste; Mr. Micawber, meanwhile,
listening with a little of an author's vanity, and contemplating
(not severely) the spikes on the opposite wall.
As I walked to and fro daily between Southwark and Blackfriars,
and lounged about at meal-times in obscure streets, the stones of
which may, for anything I know, be worn at this moment by my childish
feet, I wonder how many of these people were wanting in the crowd
that used to come filing before me in review again, to the echo
of Captain Hopkins's voice! When my thoughts go back, now, to that
slow agony of my youth, I wonder how much of the histories I invented
for such people hangs like a mist of fancy over well-remembered
facts! When I tread the old ground, I do not wonder that I seem
to see and pity, going on before me, an innocent romantic boy, making
his imaginative world out of such strange experiences and sordid
things!
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