第 118 页

Uriah fell back, as if he had been struck or stung. Looking slowly round

upon us with the darkest and wickedest expression that his face could

wear, he said, in a lower voice:

‘Oho! This is a conspiracy! You have met here by appointment! You are

playing Booty with my clerk, are you, Copperfield? Now, take care.

You’ll make nothing of this. We understand each other, you and me.

There’s no love between us. You were always a puppy with a proud

stomach, from your first coming here; and you envy me my rise, do you?

None of your plots against me; I’ll counterplot you! Micawber, you be

off. I’ll talk to you presently.’

‘Mr. Micawber,’ said I, ‘there is a sudden change in this fellow, in

more respects than the extraordinary one of his speaking the truth in

one particular, which assures me that he is brought to bay. Deal with

him as he deserves!’

‘You are a precious set of people, ain’t you?’ said Uriah, in the same

low voice, and breaking out into a clammy heat, which he wiped from his

forehead, with his long lean hand, ‘to buy over my clerk, who is the

very scum of society,--as you yourself were, Copperfield, you know it,

before anyone had charity on you,--to defame me with his lies? Miss

Trotwood, you had better stop this; or I’ll stop your husband shorter

than will be pleasant to you. I won’t know your story professionally,

for nothing, old lady! Miss Wickfield, if you have any love for your

father, you had better not join that gang. I’ll ruin him, if you do.

Now, come! I have got some of you under the harrow. Think twice, before

it goes over you. Think twice, you, Micawber, if you don’t want to

be crushed. I recommend you to take yourself off, and be talked to

presently, you fool! while there’s time to retreat. Where’s mother?’ he

said, suddenly appearing to notice, with alarm, the absence of Traddles,

and pulling down the bell-rope. ‘Fine doings in a person’s own house!’

‘Mrs. Heep is here, sir,’ said Traddles, returning with that worthy

mother of a worthy son. ‘I have taken the liberty of making myself known

to her.’

‘Who are you to make yourself known?’ retorted Uriah. ‘And what do you

want here?’

‘I am the agent and friend of Mr. Wickfield, sir,’ said Traddles, in a

composed and business-like way. ‘And I have a power of attorney from him

in my pocket, to act for him in all matters.’

‘The old ass has drunk himself into a state of dotage,’ said Uriah,

turning uglier than before, ‘and it has been got from him by fraud!’

‘Something has been got from him by fraud, I know,’ returned Traddles

quietly; ‘and so do you, Mr. Heep. We will refer that question, if you

please, to Mr. Micawber.’

‘Ury--!’ Mrs. Heep began, with an anxious gesture.

‘YOU hold your tongue, mother,’ he returned; ‘least said, soonest

mended.’

‘But, my Ury--’

‘Will you hold your tongue, mother, and leave it to me?’

Though I had long known that his servility was false, and all his

pretences knavish and hollow, I had had no adequate conception of the

extent of his hypocrisy, until I now saw him with his mask off. The

suddenness with which he dropped it, when he perceived that it was

useless to him; the malice, insolence, and hatred, he revealed; the leer

with which he exulted, even at this moment, in the evil he had done--all

this time being desperate too, and at his wits’ end for the means

of getting the better of us--though perfectly consistent with the

experience I had of him, at first took even me by surprise, who had

known him so long, and disliked him so heartily.

I say nothing of the look he conferred on me, as he stood eyeing us,

one after another; for I had always understood that he hated me, and I

remembered the marks of my hand upon his cheek. But when his eyes passed

on to Agnes, and I saw the rage with which he felt his power over her

slipping away, and the exhibition, in their disappointment, of the

odious passions that had led him to aspire to one whose virtues he could

never appreciate or care for, I was shocked by the mere thought of her

having lived, an hour, within sight of such a man.

After some rubbing of the lower part of his face, and some looking at us

with those bad eyes, over his grisly fingers, he made one more address

to me, half whining, and half abusive.

‘You think it justifiable, do you, Copperfield, you who pride yourself

so much on your honour and all the rest of it, to sneak about my place,

eaves-dropping with my clerk? If it had been ME, I shouldn’t have

wondered; for I don’t make myself out a gentleman (though I never was

in the streets either, as you were, according to Micawber), but being

you!--And you’re not afraid of doing this, either? You don’t think at

all of what I shall do, in return; or of getting yourself into

trouble for conspiracy and so forth? Very well. We shall see! Mr.

What’s-your-name, you were going to refer some question to Micawber.

There’s your referee. Why don’t you make him speak? He has learnt his

lesson, I see.’

Seeing that what he said had no effect on me or any of us, he sat on the

edge of his table with his hands in his pockets, and one of his splay

feet twisted round the other leg, waiting doggedly for what might

follow.

Mr. Micawber, whose impetuosity I had restrained thus far with the

greatest difficulty, and who had repeatedly interposed with the first

syllable of SCOUN-drel! without getting to the second, now burst

forward, drew the ruler from his breast (apparently as a defensive

weapon), and produced from his pocket a foolscap document, folded in the

form of a large letter. Opening this packet, with his old flourish, and

glancing at the contents, as if he cherished an artistic admiration of

their style of composition, he began to read as follows:

‘“Dear Miss Trotwood and gentlemen--“’

‘Bless and save the man!’ exclaimed my aunt in a low voice. ‘He’d write

letters by the ream, if it was a capital offence!’

Mr. Micawber, without hearing her, went on.

‘“In appearing before you to denounce probably the most consummate

Villain that has ever existed,”’ Mr. Micawber, without looking off the

letter, pointed the ruler, like a ghostly truncheon, at Uriah Heep,

‘“I ask no consideration for myself. The victim, from my cradle, of

pecuniary liabilities to which I have been unable to respond, I have

ever been the sport and toy of debasing circumstances. Ignominy,

Want, Despair, and Madness, have, collectively or separately, been the

attendants of my career.”’

The relish with which Mr. Micawber described himself as a prey to these

dismal calamities, was only to be equalled by the emphasis with which he

read his letter; and the kind of homage he rendered to it with a roll of

his head, when he thought he had hit a sentence very hard indeed.

‘“In an accumulation of Ignominy, Want, Despair, and Madness, I entered

the office--or, as our lively neighbour the Gaul would term it, the

Bureau--of the Firm, nominally conducted under the appellation of

Wickfield and--HEEP, but in reality, wielded by--HEEP alone. HEEP, and

only HEEP, is the mainspring of that machine. HEEP, and only HEEP, is

the Forger and the Cheat.”’

Uriah, more blue than white at these words, made a dart at the letter,

as if to tear it in pieces. Mr. Micawber, with a perfect miracle of

dexterity or luck, caught his advancing knuckles with the ruler, and

disabled his right hand. It dropped at the wrist, as if it were broken.

The blow sounded as if it had fallen on wood.

‘The Devil take you!’ said Uriah, writhing in a new way with pain. ‘I’ll

be even with you.’

‘Approach me again, you--you--you HEEP of infamy,’ gasped Mr. Micawber,

‘and if your head is human, I’ll break it. Come on, come on!’

I think I never saw anything more ridiculous--I was sensible of it, even

at the time--than Mr. Micawber making broad-sword guards with the ruler,

and crying, ‘Come on!’ while Traddles and I pushed him back into a

corner, from which, as often as we got him into it, he persisted in

emerging again.

His enemy, muttering to himself, after wringing his wounded hand for

sometime, slowly drew off his neck-kerchief and bound it up; then

held it in his other hand, and sat upon his table with his sullen face

looking down.

Mr. Micawber, when he was sufficiently cool, proceeded with his letter.

‘“The stipendiary emoluments in consideration of which I entered into

the service of--HEEP,”’ always pausing before that word and uttering

it with astonishing vigour, ‘“were not defined, beyond the pittance of

twenty-two shillings and six per week. The rest was left contingent on

the value of my professional exertions; in other and more expressive

words, on the baseness of my nature, the cupidity of my motives, the

poverty of my family, the general moral (or rather immoral) resemblance

between myself and--HEEP. Need I say, that it soon became necessary for

me to solicit from--HEEP--pecuniary advances towards the support of

Mrs. Micawber, and our blighted but rising family? Need I say that this

necessity had been foreseen by--HEEP? That those advances were secured

by I.O.U.’s and other similar acknowledgements, known to the legal

institutions of this country? And that I thus became immeshed in the web

he had spun for my reception?”’

Mr. Micawber’s enjoyment of his epistolary powers, in describing this

unfortunate state of things, really seemed to outweigh any pain or

anxiety that the reality could have caused him. He read on:

‘“Then it was that--HEEP--began to favour me with just so much of his

confidence, as was necessary to the discharge of his infernal business.

Then it was that I began, if I may so Shakespearianly express myself, to

dwindle, peak, and pine. I found that my services were constantly

called into requisition for the falsification of business, and the

mystification of an individual whom I will designate as Mr. W. That Mr.

W. was imposed upon, kept in ignorance, and deluded, in every possible

way; yet, that all this while, the ruffian--HEEP--was professing

unbounded gratitude to, and unbounded friendship for, that much-abused

gentleman. This was bad enough; but, as the philosophic Dane observes,

with that universal applicability which distinguishes the illustrious

ornament of the Elizabethan Era, worse remains behind!”’

Mr. Micawber was so very much struck by this happy rounding off with a

quotation, that he indulged himself, and us, with a second reading of

the sentence, under pretence of having lost his place.

‘“It is not my intention,”’ he continued reading on, ‘“to enter on a

detailed list, within the compass of the present epistle (though it

is ready elsewhere), of the various malpractices of a minor nature,

affecting the individual whom I have denominated Mr. W., to which I

have been a tacitly consenting party. My object, when the contest within

myself between stipend and no stipend, baker and no baker, existence

and non-existence, ceased, was to take advantage of my opportunities

to discover and expose the major malpractices committed, to that

gentleman’s grievous wrong and injury, by--HEEP. Stimulated by the

silent monitor within, and by a no less touching and appealing monitor

without--to whom I will briefly refer as Miss W.--I entered on a not

unlaborious task of clandestine investigation, protracted--now, to the

best of my knowledge, information, and belief, over a period exceeding

twelve calendar months.”’

He read this passage as if it were from an Act of Parliament; and

appeared majestically refreshed by the sound of the words.

‘“My charges against--HEEP,”’ he read on, glancing at him, and drawing

the ruler into a convenient position under his left arm, in case of

need, ‘“are as follows.”’

We all held our breath, I think. I am sure Uriah held his.

‘“First,”’ said Mr. Micawber, ‘“When Mr. W.’s faculties and memory

for business became, through causes into which it is not necessary or

expedient for me to enter, weakened and confused,--HEEP--designedly

perplexed and complicated the whole of the official transactions. When

Mr. W. was least fit to enter on business,--HEEP was always at hand

to force him to enter on it. He obtained Mr. W.’s signature under such

circumstances to documents of importance, representing them to be other

documents of no importance. He induced Mr. W. to empower him to draw

out, thus, one particular sum of trust-money, amounting to twelve six

fourteen, two and nine, and employed it to meet pretended business

charges and deficiencies which were either already provided for, or

had never really existed. He gave this proceeding, throughout, the

appearance of having originated in Mr. W.’s own dishonest intention, and

of having been accomplished by Mr. W.’s own dishonest act; and has used

it, ever since, to torture and constrain him.”’

‘You shall prove this, you Copperfield!’ said Uriah, with a threatening

shake of the head. ‘All in good time!’

‘Ask--HEEP--Mr. Traddles, who lived in his house after him,’ said Mr.

Micawber, breaking off from the letter; ‘will you?’

‘The fool himself--and lives there now,’ said Uriah, disdainfully.

‘Ask--HEEP--if he ever kept a pocket-book in that house,’ said Mr.

Micawber; ‘will you?’

I saw Uriah’s lank hand stop, involuntarily, in the scraping of his

chin.

‘Or ask him,’ said Mr. Micawber, ‘if he ever burnt one there. If he says

yes, and asks you where the ashes are, refer him to Wilkins Micawber,

and he will hear of something not at all to his advantage!’

The triumphant flourish with which Mr. Micawber delivered himself of

these words, had a powerful effect in alarming the mother; who cried

out, in much agitation:

‘Ury, Ury! Be umble, and make terms, my dear!’

‘Mother!’ he retorted, ‘will you keep quiet? You’re in a fright, and

don’t know what you say or mean. Umble!’ he repeated, looking at me,

with a snarl; ‘I’ve umbled some of ‘em for a pretty long time back,

umble as I was!’

Mr. Micawber, genteelly adjusting his chin in his cravat, presently

proceeded with his composition.

‘“Second. HEEP has, on several occasions, to the best of my knowledge,

information, and belief--“’

‘But that won’t do,’ muttered Uriah, relieved. ‘Mother, you keep quiet.’