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‘Those terms are, that you will earn enough for yourself to provide for

your eating and drinking, and pocket-money. Your lodging (which I have

arranged for) will be paid by me. So will your washing--’

‘--Which will be kept down to my estimate,’ said his sister.

‘Your clothes will be looked after for you, too,’ said Mr. Murdstone;

‘as you will not be able, yet awhile, to get them for yourself. So you

are now going to London, David, with Mr. Quinion, to begin the world on

your own account.’

‘In short, you are provided for,’ observed his sister; ‘and will please

to do your duty.’

Though I quite understood that the purpose of this announcement was

to get rid of me, I have no distinct remembrance whether it pleased

or frightened me. My impression is, that I was in a state of confusion

about it, and, oscillating between the two points, touched neither. Nor

had I much time for the clearing of my thoughts, as Mr. Quinion was to

go upon the morrow.

Behold me, on the morrow, in a much-worn little white hat, with a black

crape round it for my mother, a black jacket, and a pair of hard, stiff

corduroy trousers--which Miss Murdstone considered the best armour for

the legs in that fight with the world which was now to come off. Behold

me so attired, and with my little worldly all before me in a small

trunk, sitting, a lone lorn child (as Mrs. Gummidge might have said),

in the post-chaise that was carrying Mr. Quinion to the London coach at

Yarmouth! See, how our house and church are lessening in the distance;

how the grave beneath the tree is blotted out by intervening objects;

how the spire points upwards from my old playground no more, and the sky

is empty!

CHAPTER 11. 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