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that opening, and that I believed I should like it very much. That I was

strongly inclined to like it, and had taken immediately to the proposal.

That I could not absolutely pledge myself to like it, until I knew

something more about it. That although it was little else than a matter

of form, I presumed I should have an opportunity of trying how I liked

it, before I bound myself to it irrevocably.

‘Oh surely! surely!’ said Mr. Spenlow. ‘We always, in this house,

propose a month--an initiatory month. I should be happy, myself, to

propose two months--three--an indefinite period, in fact--but I have a

partner. Mr. Jorkins.’

‘And the premium, sir,’ I returned, ‘is a thousand pounds?’

‘And the premium, Stamp included, is a thousand pounds,’ said Mr.

Spenlow. ‘As I have mentioned to Miss Trotwood, I am actuated by no

mercenary considerations; few men are less so, I believe; but Mr.

Jorkins has his opinions on these subjects, and I am bound to respect

Mr. Jorkins’s opinions. Mr. Jorkins thinks a thousand pounds too little,

in short.’

‘I suppose, sir,’ said I, still desiring to spare my aunt, ‘that it is

not the custom here, if an articled clerk were particularly useful,

and made himself a perfect master of his profession’--I could not help

blushing, this looked so like praising myself--‘I suppose it is not the

custom, in the later years of his time, to allow him any--’

Mr. Spenlow, by a great effort, just lifted his head far enough out of

his cravat to shake it, and answered, anticipating the word ‘salary’:

‘No. I will not say what consideration I might give to that point

myself, Mr. Copperfield, if I were unfettered. Mr. Jorkins is

immovable.’

I was quite dismayed by the idea of this terrible Jorkins. But I found

out afterwards that he was a mild man of a heavy temperament, whose

place in the business was to keep himself in the background, and be

constantly exhibited by name as the most obdurate and ruthless of men.

If a clerk wanted his salary raised, Mr. Jorkins wouldn’t listen to such

a proposition. If a client were slow to settle his bill of costs, Mr.

Jorkins was resolved to have it paid; and however painful these things

might be (and always were) to the feelings of Mr. Spenlow, Mr. Jorkins

would have his bond. The heart and hand of the good angel Spenlow would

have been always open, but for the restraining demon Jorkins. As I have

grown older, I think I have had experience of some other houses doing

business on the principle of Spenlow and Jorkins!

It was settled that I should begin my month’s probation as soon as I

pleased, and that my aunt need neither remain in town nor return at

its expiration, as the articles of agreement, of which I was to be the

subject, could easily be sent to her at home for her signature. When

we had got so far, Mr. Spenlow offered to take me into Court then and

there, and show me what sort of place it was. As I was willing enough

to know, we went out with this object, leaving my aunt behind; who would

trust herself, she said, in no such place, and who, I think, regarded

all Courts of Law as a sort of powder-mills that might blow up at any

time.

Mr. Spenlow conducted me through a paved courtyard formed of grave brick

houses, which I inferred, from the Doctors’ names upon the doors, to be

the official abiding-places of the learned advocates of whom Steerforth

had told me; and into a large dull room, not unlike a chapel to my

thinking, on the left hand. The upper part of this room was fenced off

from the rest; and there, on the two sides of a raised platform of the

horse-shoe form, sitting on easy old-fashioned dining-room chairs, were

sundry gentlemen in red gowns and grey wigs, whom I found to be the

Doctors aforesaid. Blinking over a little desk like a pulpit-desk, in

the curve of the horse-shoe, was an old gentleman, whom, if I had seen

him in an aviary, I should certainly have taken for an owl, but who, I

learned, was the presiding judge. In the space within the horse-shoe,

lower than these, that is to say, on about the level of the floor, were

sundry other gentlemen, of Mr. Spenlow’s rank, and dressed like him in

black gowns with white fur upon them, sitting at a long green table.

Their cravats were in general stiff, I thought, and their looks haughty;

but in this last respect I presently conceived I had done them an

injustice, for when two or three of them had to rise and answer a

question of the presiding dignitary, I never saw anything more sheepish.

The public, represented by a boy with a comforter, and a shabby-genteel

man secretly eating crumbs out of his coat pockets, was warming itself

at a stove in the centre of the Court. The languid stillness of the

place was only broken by the chirping of this fire and by the voice of

one of the Doctors, who was wandering slowly through a perfect library

of evidence, and stopping to put up, from time to time, at little

roadside inns of argument on the journey. Altogether, I have never,

on any occasion, made one at such a cosey, dosey, old-fashioned,

time-forgotten, sleepy-headed little family-party in all my life; and

I felt it would be quite a soothing opiate to belong to it in any

character--except perhaps as a suitor.

Very well satisfied with the dreamy nature of this retreat, I informed

Mr. Spenlow that I had seen enough for that time, and we rejoined

my aunt; in company with whom I presently departed from the Commons,

feeling very young when I went out of Spenlow and Jorkins’s, on account

of the clerks poking one another with their pens to point me out.

We arrived at Lincoln’s Inn Fields without any new adventures, except

encountering an unlucky donkey in a costermonger’s cart, who suggested

painful associations to my aunt. We had another long talk about my

plans, when we were safely housed; and as I knew she was anxious to

get home, and, between fire, food, and pickpockets, could never be

considered at her ease for half-an-hour in London, I urged her not to be

uncomfortable on my account, but to leave me to take care of myself.

‘I have not been here a week tomorrow, without considering that too, my

dear,’ she returned. ‘There is a furnished little set of chambers to be

let in the Adelphi, Trot, which ought to suit you to a marvel.’

With this brief introduction, she produced from her pocket an

advertisement, carefully cut out of a newspaper, setting forth that in

Buckingham Street in the Adelphi there was to be let furnished, with a

view of the river, a singularly desirable, and compact set of chambers,

forming a genteel residence for a young gentleman, a member of one

of the Inns of Court, or otherwise, with immediate possession. Terms

moderate, and could be taken for a month only, if required.

‘Why, this is the very thing, aunt!’ said I, flushed with the possible

dignity of living in chambers.

‘Then come,’ replied my aunt, immediately resuming the bonnet she had a

minute before laid aside. ‘We’ll go and look at ‘em.’

Away we went. The advertisement directed us to apply to Mrs. Crupp

on the premises, and we rung the area bell, which we supposed to

communicate with Mrs. Crupp. It was not until we had rung three or four

times that we could prevail on Mrs. Crupp to communicate with us, but

at last she appeared, being a stout lady with a flounce of flannel

petticoat below a nankeen gown.

‘Let us see these chambers of yours, if you please, ma’am,’ said my

aunt.

‘For this gentleman?’ said Mrs. Crupp, feeling in her pocket for her

keys.

‘Yes, for my nephew,’ said my aunt.

‘And a sweet set they is for sich!’ said Mrs. Crupp.

So we went upstairs.

They were on the top of the house--a great point with my aunt, being

near the fire-escape--and consisted of a little half-blind entry where

you could see hardly anything, a little stone-blind pantry where you

could see nothing at all, a sitting-room, and a bedroom. The furniture

was rather faded, but quite good enough for me; and, sure enough, the

river was outside the windows.

As I was delighted with the place, my aunt and Mrs. Crupp withdrew into

the pantry to discuss the terms, while I remained on the sitting-room

sofa, hardly daring to think it possible that I could be destined to

live in such a noble residence. After a single combat of some duration

they returned, and I saw, to my joy, both in Mrs. Crupp’s countenance

and in my aunt’s, that the deed was done.

‘Is it the last occupant’s furniture?’ inquired my aunt.

‘Yes, it is, ma’am,’ said Mrs. Crupp.

‘What’s become of him?’ asked my aunt.

Mrs. Crupp was taken with a troublesome cough, in the midst of which

she articulated with much difficulty. ‘He was took ill here, ma’am,

and--ugh! ugh! ugh! dear me!--and he died!’

‘Hey! What did he die of?’ asked my aunt.

‘Well, ma’am, he died of drink,’ said Mrs. Crupp, in confidence. ‘And

smoke.’

‘Smoke? You don’t mean chimneys?’ said my aunt.

‘No, ma’am,’ returned Mrs. Crupp. ‘Cigars and pipes.’

‘That’s not catching, Trot, at any rate,’ remarked my aunt, turning to

me.

‘No, indeed,’ said I.

In short, my aunt, seeing how enraptured I was with the premises, took

them for a month, with leave to remain for twelve months when that

time was out. Mrs. Crupp was to find linen, and to cook; every other

necessary was already provided; and Mrs. Crupp expressly intimated that

she should always yearn towards me as a son. I was to take possession

the day after tomorrow, and Mrs. Crupp said, thank Heaven she had now

found summun she could care for!

On our way back, my aunt informed me how she confidently trusted that

the life I was now to lead would make me firm and self-reliant, which

was all I wanted. She repeated this several times next day, in the

intervals of our arranging for the transmission of my clothes and books

from Mr. Wickfield’s; relative to which, and to all my late holiday, I

wrote a long letter to Agnes, of which my aunt took charge, as she was

to leave on the succeeding day. Not to lengthen these particulars, I

need only add, that she made a handsome provision for all my

possible wants during my month of trial; that Steerforth, to my great

disappointment and hers too, did not make his appearance before she went

away; that I saw her safely seated in the Dover coach, exulting in the

coming discomfiture of the vagrant donkeys, with Janet at her side; and

that when the coach was gone, I turned my face to the Adelphi, pondering

on the old days when I used to roam about its subterranean arches, and

on the happy changes which had brought me to the surface.

CHAPTER 24. MY FIRST DISSIPATION

It was a wonderfully fine thing to have that lofty castle to myself, and

to feel, when I shut my outer door, like Robinson Crusoe, when he had

got into his fortification, and pulled his ladder up after him. It was a

wonderfully fine thing to walk about town with the key of my house in my

pocket, and to know that I could ask any fellow to come home, and make

quite sure of its being inconvenient to nobody, if it were not so to me.

It was a wonderfully fine thing to let myself in and out, and to come

and go without a word to anyone, and to ring Mrs. Crupp up, gasping,

from the depths of the earth, when I wanted her--and when she was

disposed to come. All this, I say, was wonderfully fine; but I must say,

too, that there were times when it was very dreary.

It was fine in the morning, particularly in the fine mornings. It looked

a very fresh, free life, by daylight: still fresher, and more free, by

sunlight. But as the day declined, the life seemed to go down too. I

don’t know how it was; it seldom looked well by candle-light. I wanted

somebody to talk to, then. I missed Agnes. I found a tremendous blank,

in the place of that smiling repository of my confidence. Mrs. Crupp

appeared to be a long way off. I thought about my predecessor, who had

died of drink and smoke; and I could have wished he had been so good as

to live, and not bother me with his decease.

After two days and nights, I felt as if I had lived there for a year,

and yet I was not an hour older, but was quite as much tormented by my

own youthfulness as ever.

Steerforth not yet appearing, which induced me to apprehend that he must

be ill, I left the Commons early on the third day, and walked out to

Highgate. Mrs. Steerforth was very glad to see me, and said that he had

gone away with one of his Oxford friends to see another who lived near

St. Albans, but that she expected him to return tomorrow. I was so fond

of him, that I felt quite jealous of his Oxford friends.

As she pressed me to stay to dinner, I remained, and I believe we talked

about nothing but him all day. I told her how much the people liked him

at Yarmouth, and what a delightful companion he had been. Miss Dartle

was full of hints and mysterious questions, but took a great interest

in all our proceedings there, and said, ‘Was it really though?’ and so

forth, so often, that she got everything out of me she wanted to know.

Her appearance was exactly what I have described it, when I first saw

her; but the society of the two ladies was so agreeable, and came so

natural to me, that I felt myself falling a little in love with her. I

could not help thinking, several times in the course of the evening, and

particularly when I walked home at night, what delightful company she

would be in Buckingham Street.

I was taking my coffee and roll in the morning, before going to the

Commons--and I may observe in this place that it is surprising how

much coffee Mrs. Crupp used, and how weak it was, considering--when

Steerforth himself walked in, to my unbounded joy.

‘My dear Steerforth,’ cried I, ‘I began to think I should never see you

again!’

‘I was carried off, by force of arms,’ said Steerforth, ‘the very next

morning after I got home. Why, Daisy, what a rare old bachelor you are

here!’

I showed him over the establishment, not omitting the pantry, with no

little pride, and he commended it highly. ‘I tell you what, old boy,’ he

added, ‘I shall make quite a town-house of this place, unless you give

me notice to quit.’

This was a delightful hearing. I told him if he waited for that, he