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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!

CHAPTER 12. LIKING LIFE ON MY OWN ACCOUNT NO BETTER, I FORM A GREAT RESOLUTION

In due time, Mr. Micawber’s petition was ripe for hearing; and that

gentleman was ordered to be discharged under the Act, to my great joy.

His creditors were not implacable; and Mrs. Micawber informed me that

even the revengeful boot-maker had declared in open court that he bore

him no malice, but that when money was owing to him he liked to be paid.

He said he thought it was human nature.

Mr. Micawber returned to the King’s Bench when his case was over, as

some fees were to be settled, and some formalities observed, before he

could be actually released. The club received him with transport, and

held an harmonic meeting that evening in his honour; while Mrs. Micawber

and I had a lamb’s fry in private, surrounded by the sleeping family.

‘On such an occasion I will give you, Master Copperfield,’ said Mrs.

Micawber, ‘in a little more flip,’ for we had been having some already,

‘the memory of my papa and mama.’

‘Are they dead, ma’am?’ I inquired, after drinking the toast in a

wine-glass.

‘My mama departed this life,’ said Mrs. Micawber, ‘before Mr. Micawber’s

difficulties commenced, or at least before they became pressing. My papa

lived to bail Mr. Micawber several times, and then expired, regretted by

a numerous circle.’

Mrs. Micawber shook her head, and dropped a pious tear upon the twin who

happened to be in hand.

As I could hardly hope for a more favourable opportunity of putting a

question in which I had a near interest, I said to Mrs. Micawber:

‘May I ask, ma’am, what you and Mr. Micawber intend to do, now that Mr.

Micawber is out of his difficulties, and at liberty? Have you settled

yet?’

‘My family,’ said Mrs. Micawber, who always said those two words with an

air, though I never could discover who came under the denomination, ‘my

family are of opinion that Mr. Micawber should quit London, and exert

his talents in the country. Mr. Micawber is a man of great talent,

Master Copperfield.’

I said I was sure of that.

‘Of great talent,’ repeated Mrs. Micawber. ‘My family are of opinion,

that, with a little interest, something might be done for a man of his

ability in the Custom House. The influence of my family being local, it

is their wish that Mr. Micawber should go down to Plymouth. They think

it indispensable that he should be upon the spot.’

‘That he may be ready?’ I suggested.

‘Exactly,’ returned Mrs. Micawber. ‘That he may be ready--in case of

anything turning up.’

‘And do you go too, ma’am?’

The events of the day, in combination with the twins, if not with the

flip, had made Mrs. Micawber hysterical, and she shed tears as she

replied:

‘I never will desert Mr. Micawber. Mr. Micawber may have concealed his

difficulties from me in the first instance, but his sanguine temper may

have led him to expect that he would overcome them. The pearl necklace

and bracelets which I inherited from mama, have been disposed of for

less than half their value; and the set of coral, which was the wedding

gift of my papa, has been actually thrown away for nothing. But I never

will desert Mr. Micawber. No!’ cried Mrs. Micawber, more affected than

before, ‘I never will do it! It’s of no use asking me!’

I felt quite uncomfortable--as if Mrs. Micawber supposed I had asked her

to do anything of the sort!--and sat looking at her in alarm.

‘Mr. Micawber has his faults. I do not deny that he is improvident. I

do not deny that he has kept me in the dark as to his resources and his