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+The Project Gutenberg eBook, Dickens' Stories About Children Every Child
+Can Read, by Charles Dickens, Edited by Jesse Lyman Hurlbut
+
+
+This eBook is for the use of anyone anywhere at no cost and with
+almost no restrictions whatsoever.  You may copy it, give it away or
+re-use it under the terms of the Project Gutenberg License included
+with this eBook or online at www.gutenberg.org
+
+
+
+
+
+Title: Dickens' Stories About Children Every Child Can Read
+
+
+Author: Charles Dickens
+
+Editor: Jesse Lyman Hurlbut
+
+Release Date: May 3, 2010  [eBook #32241]
+
+Language: English
+
+Character set encoding: ISO-646-US (US-ASCII)
+
+
+***START OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK DICKENS' STORIES ABOUT CHILDREN
+EVERY CHILD CAN READ***
+
+
+E-text prepared by Emmy, Tor Martin Kristiansen, and the Project Gutenberg
+Online Distributed Proofreading Team (http://www.pgdp.net) from page
+images generously made available by Internet Archive
+(http://www.archive.org)
+
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+
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+
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+      Images of the original pages are available through
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+
+
+
+
+DICKENS' STORIES ABOUT CHILDREN EVERY CHILD CAN READ
+
+Edited by
+
+REV. JESSE LYMAN HURLBUT, D.D.
+
+
+[Illustration: CHARLES DICKENS.]
+
+
+Illustrated
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+[Illustration: Every Child's Library]
+
+The John C. Winston Co.
+Philadelphia
+
+Copyright, 1909, By
+The John C. Winston Co.
+
+
+
+
+PREFACE.
+
+
+TO THE YOUNG READER:
+
+Charles Dickens was one of the greatest among the many story-writers of
+"the Victorian age;" that is, the middle and latter part of the
+Nineteenth Century, when Victoria was Queen of Great Britain. Perhaps he
+was the greatest of them all for now, a generation after he passed away,
+more people read the stories of Dickens than those by any other author
+of that period. In those wonderful writings are found many pictures of
+child-life connected with the plan of the novels or stories. These
+child-stories have been taken out of their connections and are told by
+themselves in this volume. By and by you will read for yourselves, "The
+Christmas Carol," "The Chimes," "David Copperfield," "The Old Curiosity
+Shop," and the other great books by that fascinating writer, who saw
+people whom nobody else ever saw, and made them real. When you read
+those books you will meet again these charming children, and will
+remember them as the friends of your childhood.
+
+                                                    JESSE L. HURLBUT.
+
+
+
+
+CONTENTS.
+
+
+                                                      PAGE
+
+  TROTTY VECK AND MEG.  _From "The Chimes"_              9
+
+  TINY TIM.  _From "Christmas Carol"_                   24
+
+  THE RUNAWAY COUPLE.  _From "The Holly-Tree Inn"_      34
+
+  LITTLE DORRIT.  _From "Little Dorrit"_                49
+
+  THE TOY-MAKER AND HIS BLIND DAUGHTER.  _From
+      "Cricket on the Hearth"_                          68
+
+  LITTLE NELL.  _From "The Old Curiosity Shop"_         86
+
+  LITTLE DAVID COPPERFIELD.  _From "David
+      Copperfield"_                                    123
+
+  JENNY WREN.  _From "Our Mutual Friend"_              178
+
+  PIP'S ADVENTURE.  _From "Great Expectations"_        185
+
+  TODGERS'                                             196
+
+  DICK SWIVELLER AND THE MARCHIONESS                   219
+
+  MR. WARDLE'S SERVANT JOE                             233
+
+  THE BRAVE AND HONEST BOY, OLIVER TWIST               248
+
+
+
+
+ILLUSTRATIONS.
+
+
+  CHARLES DICKENS                           _Frontispiece_
+
+                                                      PAGE
+
+  "THEY BROKE IN LIKE A GRACE, MY DEAR."                13
+
+  "MR. CLENNAM FOLLOWED HER HOME."                      65
+
+  LITTLE NELL AND HER GRANDFATHER                       86
+
+  DAVID COPPERFIELD AND LITTLE EM'LY                   131
+
+  SEATED ON THE CRYSTAL CARPET WERE TWO GIRLS          179
+
+  "KEEP STILL, YOU LITTLE IMP, OR I'LL CUT YOUR
+      THROAT."                                         185
+
+  "MR. TUPMAN, WE ARE OBSERVED!"                       240
+
+
+
+
+I.
+
+TROTTY VECK AND HIS DAUGHTER MEG.
+
+
+"TROTTY" seems a strange name for an old man, but it was given to Toby
+Veck because of his always going at a trot to do his errands; for he was
+a ticket porter or messenger and his office was to take letters and
+messages for people who were in too great a hurry to send them by post,
+which in those days was neither so cheap nor so quick as it is now. He
+did not earn very much, and had to be out in all weathers and all day
+long. But Toby was of a cheerful disposition, and looked on the bright
+side of everything, and was grateful for any small mercies that came in
+his way; and so was happier than many people who never knew what it is
+to be hungry or in want of comforts. His greatest joy was his dear,
+bright, pretty daughter Meg, who loved him dearly.
+
+One cold day, near the end of the year, Toby had been waiting a long
+time for a job, trotting up and down in his usual place before the
+church, and trying hard to keep himself warm, when the bells chimed
+twelve o'clock, which made Toby think of dinner.
+
+"There's nothing," he remarked, carefully feeling his nose to make sure
+it was still there, "more regular in coming round than dinner-time, and
+nothing less regular in coming round than dinner. That's the great
+difference between 'em." He went on talking to himself, trotting up and
+down, and never noticing who was coming near to him.
+
+"Why, father, father," said a pleasant voice, and Toby turned to find
+his daughter's sweet, bright eyes close to his.
+
+"Why, pet," said he, kissing her and squeezing her blooming face between
+his hands, "what's to-do? I didn't expect you to-day, Meg."
+
+"Neither did I expect to come, father," said Meg, nodding and smiling.
+"But here I am! And not alone, not alone!"
+
+"Why you don't mean to say," observed Trotty, looking curiously at the
+covered basket she carried, "that you----"
+
+"Smell it, father dear," said Meg. "Only smell it!"
+
+Trotty was going to lift up the cover at once, in a great hurry, when
+she gaily interposed her hand.
+
+"No, no, no," said Meg, with the glee of a child. "Lengthen it out a
+little. Let me just lift up the corner; just a lit-tle, ti-ny cor-ner,
+you know," said Meg, suiting the action to the word with the utmost
+gentleness, and speaking very softly, as if she were afraid of being
+overheard by something inside the basket. "There, now; what's that?"
+
+Toby took the shortest possible sniff at the edge of the basket, and
+cried out in rapture:
+
+"Why, it's hot," he said.
+
+But to Meg's great delight he could not guess what it was that smelt so
+good.
+
+"Polonies? Trotters? Liver? Pigs' feet? Sausages?" he tried one after
+the other. At last he exclaimed in triumph. "Why, what am I a-thinking
+of? It's tripe."
+
+And it was.
+
+"And so," said Meg, "I'll lay the cloth at once, father; for I have
+brought the tripe in a basin, and tied the basin up in a
+pocket-handkerchief; and if I like to be proud for once, and spread that
+for a cloth, and call it a cloth, there's nobody to prevent me, is there
+father?"
+
+"Not that I know of, my dear," said Toby; "but they're always a-bringing
+up some new law or other."
+
+"And according to what I was reading you in the paper the other day,
+father, what the judge said, you know, we poor people are supposed to
+know them all. Ha, ha! What a mistake! My goodness me, how clever they
+think us!"
+
+"Yes, my dear," cried Trotty; "and they'd be very fond of any one of us
+that _did_ know 'em all. He'd grow fat upon the work he'd get, that man,
+and be popular with the gentlefolks in his neighborhood. Very much so!"
+
+"He'd eat his dinner with an appetite, whoever he was, if it smelt like
+this," said Meg cheerfully. "Make haste, for there's a hot potato
+besides, and half a pint of fresh-drawn beer in a bottle. Where will you
+dine, father--on the post or on the steps? Dear, dear, how grand we are!
+Two places to choose from!"
+
+"The steps to-day, my pet," said Trotty. "Steps in dry weather, post in
+wet. There's greater conveniency in the steps at all times, because of
+the sitting down; but they're rheumatic in the damp."
+
+"Then, here," said Meg, clapping her hands after a moment's bustle;
+"here it is all ready! And beautiful it looks! Come, father. Come!"
+
+
+[Illustration: "They Broke in Like a Grace, My Dear."
+
+                                              Page 13]
+
+And just as Toby was about to sit down to his dinner on the door-steps
+of a big house close by, the chimes rang out again, and Toby took off
+his hat and said, "Amen."
+
+"Amen to the bells, father?"
+
+"They broke in like a grace, my dear," said Trotty; "they'd say a good
+one if they could, I'm sure. Many's the kind thing they say to me. How
+often have I heard them bells say, 'Toby Veck, keep a good heart, Toby!'
+A million times? More!"
+
+"Well, I never!" cried Meg.
+
+"When things is very bad, then it's 'Toby Veck, Toby Veck, job coming
+soon, Toby!'"
+
+"And it comes--at last, father," said Meg, with a touch of sadness in
+her pleasant voice.
+
+"Always," answered Toby. "Never fails."
+
+While this discourse was holding, Trotty made no pause in his attack
+upon the savory meat before him, but cut and ate, and cut and drank, and
+cut and chewed, and dodged about from tripe to hot potato, and from hot
+potato back again to tripe, with an unfailing relish. But happening now
+to look all round the street--in case anybody should be beckoning from
+any door or window for a porter--his eyes, in coming back again, saw Meg
+sitting opposite him, with her arms folded, and only busy in watching
+his dinner with a smile of happiness.
+
+"Why, Lord forgive me!" said Trotty, dropping his knife and fork. "My
+dove! Meg! why didn't you tell me what a beast I was?"
+
+"Father!"
+
+"Sitting here," said Trotty, in a sorrowful manner, "cramming, and
+stuffing, and gorging myself, and you before me there, never so much as
+breaking your precious fast, nor wanting to, when----"
+
+"But I have broken it, father," interposed his daughter, laughing, "all
+to bits. I have had my dinner."
+
+"Nonsense," said Trotty. "Two dinners in one day! It ain't possible! You
+might as well tell me that two New Year's days will come together, or
+that I have had a gold head all my life, and never changed it."
+
+"I have had my dinner, father, for all that," said Meg, coming nearer to
+him. "And if you will go on with yours, I'll tell you how and where, and
+how your dinner came to be brought and--and something else besides."
+
+Toby still appeared not to believe her; but she looked into his face
+with her clear eyes, and, laying her hand upon his shoulder, motioned
+him to go on while the meat was hot. So Trotty took up his knife and
+fork again and went to work, but much more slowly than before, and
+shaking his head, as if he were not at all pleased with himself.
+
+"I had my dinner, father," said Meg, after a little hesitation,
+"with--with Richard. His dinner-time was early; and as he brought his
+dinner with him when he came to see me, we--we had it together, father."
+
+Trotty took a little beer and smacked his lips. Then he said "Oh!"
+because she waited.
+
+"And Richard says, father--" Meg resumed, then stopped.
+
+"What does Richard say, Meg?" asked Toby.
+
+"Richard says, father--" Another stoppage.
+
+"Richard's a long time saying it," said Toby.
+
+"He says, then, father," Meg continued, lifting up her eyes at last, and
+speaking in a tremble, but quite plainly, "another year is nearly gone,
+and where is the use of waiting on from year to year, when it is so
+unlikely we shall ever be better off than we are now? He says we are
+poor now, father, and we shall be poor then; but we are young now, and
+years will make us old before we know it. He says that if we wait,
+people as poor as we are, until we see our way quite clearly, the way
+will be a narrow one indeed--the common way--the grave, father."
+
+A bolder man than Trotty Veck must needs have drawn upon his boldness
+largely to deny it. Trotty held his peace.
+
+"And how hard, father, to grow old and die, and think we might have
+cheered and helped each other! How hard in all our lives to love each
+other, and to grieve, apart, to see each other working, changing,
+growing old and gray. Even if I got the better of it, and forgot him
+(which I never could), oh, father, dear, how hard to have a heart so
+full as mine is now, and live to have it slowly drained out every drop,
+without remembering one happy moment of a woman's life to stay behind
+and comfort me and make me better!"
+
+Trotty sat quite still. Meg dried her eyes, and said more gaily--that is
+to say, with here a laugh and there a sob, and here a laugh and sob
+together:
+
+"So Richard says, father, as his work was yesterday made certain for
+some time to come, and as I love him and have loved him full three
+years--ah, longer than that, if he knew it!--will I marry him on New
+Year's Day?"
+
+Just then Richard himself came up to persuade Toby to agree to their
+plan; and, almost at the same moment, a footman came out of the house
+and ordered them all off the steps, and some gentlemen came out who
+called up Trotty, and asked a great many questions, and found a good
+deal of fault, telling Richard he was very foolish to want to get
+married, which made Toby feel very unhappy, and Richard very angry. So
+the lovers went off together sadly; Richard looking gloomy and downcast,
+and Meg in tears. Toby, who had a letter given him to carry, and a
+sixpence, trotted off in rather low spirits to a very grand house, where
+he was told to take the letter in to the gentleman. While he was
+waiting, he heard the letter read. It was from Alderman Cute, to tell
+Sir Joseph Bowley that one of his tenants named Will Fern, who had come
+to London to try to get work, and been brought before him charged with
+sleeping in a shed, and asking if Sir Joseph wished him to be dealt
+kindly with or otherwise. To Toby's great disappointment, for Sir Joseph
+had talked a great deal about being a friend to the poor, the answer was
+given that Will Fern might be sent to prison as a vagabond, and made an
+example of, though his only fault was that he was poor. On his way home,
+Toby, thinking sadly, with his hat pulled down low on his head, ran
+against a man dressed like a country-man, carrying a fair-haired little
+girl. Toby enquired anxiously if he had hurt either of them. The man
+answered no, and seeing Toby had a kind face, he asked him the way to
+Alderman Cute's house.
+
+"It's impossible," cried Toby, "that your name is Will Fern?"
+
+"That's my name," said the man.
+
+Thereupon Toby told him what he had just heard, and said, "Don't go
+there."
+
+Poor Will told him how he could not make a living in the country, and
+had come to London with his orphan niece to try to find a friend of her
+mother's and to endeavor to get some work, and, wishing Toby a happy New
+Year, was about to trudge wearily off again, when Trotty caught his
+hand, saying--
+
+"Stay! The New Year never can be happy to me if I see the child and you
+go wandering away without a shelter for your heads. Come home with me.
+I'm a poor man, living in a poor place; but I can give you lodging for
+one night, and never miss it. Come home with me! Here! I'll take her!"
+cried Trotty, lifting up the child. "A pretty one! I'd carry twenty
+times her weight and never know I'd got it. Tell me if I go too quick
+for you. I'm very fast. I always was!" Trotty said this, taking about
+six of his trotting paces to one stride of his tired companion, and with
+his thin legs quivering again beneath the load he bore.
+
+"Why, she's as light," said Trotty, trotting in his speech as well as in
+his gait--for he couldn't bear to be thanked, and dreaded a moment's
+pause--"as light as a feather. Lighter than a peacock's feather--a great
+deal lighter. Here we are and here we go!" And, rushing in, he set the
+child down before his daughter. The little girl gave one look at Meg's
+sweet face and ran into her arms at once, while Trotty ran round the
+room, saying, "Here we are and here we go. Here, Uncle Will, come to the
+fire. Meg, my precious darling, where's the kettle? Here it is and here
+it goes, and it'll bile in no time!"
+
+"Why, father!" said Meg, as she knelt before the child and pulled off
+her wet shoes, "you're crazy to-night, I think. I don't know what the
+bells would say to that. Poor little feet, how cold they are!"
+
+"Oh, they're warmer now!" exclaimed the child. "They're quite warm now!"
+
+"No, no, no," said Meg. "We haven't rubbed 'em half enough. We're so
+busy. And when they're done, we'll brush out the damp hair; and when
+that's done, we'll bring some color to the poor pale face with fresh
+water; and when that's done, we'll be so gay and brisk and happy!"
+
+The child, sobbing, clasped her round the neck, saying, "O Meg, O dear
+Meg!"
+
+"Good gracious me!" said Meg presently, "father's crazy. He's put the
+dear child's bonnet on the kettle, and hung the lid behind the door!"
+
+Trotty hastily repaired this mistake, and went off to find some tea and
+a rasher of bacon he fancied "he had seen lying somewhere on the
+stairs."
+
+He soon came back and made the tea, and before long they were all
+enjoying the meal. Trotty and Meg only took a morsel for form's sake
+(for they had only a very little, not enough for all), but their delight
+was in seeing their visitors eat, and very happy they were--though
+Trotty had noticed that Meg was sitting by the fire in tears when they
+had come in, and he feared her marriage had been broken off.
+
+After tea Meg took Lilian to bed, and Toby showed Will Fern where he was
+to sleep. As he came back past Meg's door he heard the child saying her
+prayers, remembering Meg's name and asking for his. Then he went to sit
+by the fire and read his paper, and fell asleep to have a wonderful
+dream, so terrible and sad, that it was a great relief when he woke.
+
+"And whatever you do, father," said Meg, "don't eat tripe again without
+asking some doctor whether it's likely to agree with you; for how you
+_have_ been going on! Good gracious!"
+
+She was working with her needle at the little table by the fire,
+dressing her simple gown with ribbons for her wedding--so quietly happy,
+so blooming and youthful, so full of beautiful promise that he uttered a
+great cry as if it were an angel in his house, then flew to clasp her in
+his arms.
+
+But he caught his feet in the newspaper, which had fallen on the hearth,
+and somebody came rushing in between them.
+
+"No!" cried the voice of this same somebody. A generous and jolly voice
+it was! "Not even you; not even you. The first kiss of Meg in the New
+Year is mine--mine! I have been waiting outside the house this hour to
+hear the bells and claim it. Meg, my precious prize, a happy year! A
+life of happy years, my darling wife!"
+
+And Richard smothered her with kisses.
+
+You never in all your life saw anything like Trotty after this, I don't
+care where you have lived or what you have seen; you never in your life
+saw anything at all approaching him! He kept running up to Meg, and
+squeezing her fresh face between his hands and kissing it, going from
+her backwards not to lose sight of it, and running up again like a
+figure in a magic lantern; and whatever he did, he was constantly
+sitting himself down in his chair, and never stopping in it for one
+single moment, being--that's the truth--beside himself with joy.
+
+"And to-morrow's your wedding-day, my pet!" cried Trotty. "Your real,
+happy wedding-day!"
+
+"To-day!" cried Richard, shaking hands with him. "To-day. The chimes are
+ringing in the New Year. Hear them!"
+
+They _were_ ringing! Bless their sturdy hearts, they _were_ ringing!
+Great bells as they were--melodious, deep-mouthed, noble bells, cast in
+no common metal, made by no common founder--when had they ever chimed
+like that before?
+
+Trotty was backing off to that wonderful chair again, when the child,
+who had been awakened by the noise, came running in half-dressed.
+
+"Why, here she is!" cried Trotty, catching her up. "Here's little
+Lilian! Ha, ha, ha! Here we are and here we go. Oh, here we are and here
+we go again! And here we are and here we go! And Uncle Will, too!"
+
+Before Will Fern could make the least reply, a band of music burst into
+the room, attended by a flock of neighbors, screaming, "A Happy New
+Year, Meg!" "A happy wedding!" "Many of 'em!" and other fragmentary
+good-wishes of that sort. The Drum (who was a private friend of
+Trotty's) then stepped forward and said:
+
+"Trotty Veck, my boy, it's got about that your daughter is going to be
+married to-morrow. There ain't a soul that knows you that don't wish you
+well, or that knows her and don't wish her well. Or that knows you both,
+and don't wish you both all the happiness the New Year can bring. And
+here we are to play it in and dance it in accordingly."
+
+Then Mrs. Chickenstalker came in (a good-humored, nice-looking woman
+who, to the delight of all, turned out to be the friend of Lilian's
+mother, for whom Will Fern had come to look), with a stone pitcher full
+of "flip," to wish Meg joy, and then the music struck up, and Trotty,
+making Meg and Richard second couple, led off Mrs. Chickenstalker down
+the dance, and danced it in a step unknown before or since, founded on
+his own peculiar trot.
+
+
+
+
+II.
+
+TINY TIM.
+
+
+IT will surprise you all very much to hear that there was once a man who
+did not like Christmas. In fact, he had been heard on several occasions
+to use the word _humbug_ with regard to it. His name was Scrooge, and he
+was a hard, sour-tempered man of business, intent only on saving and
+making money, and caring nothing for anyone. He paid the poor,
+hard-working clerk in his office as little as he could possibly get the
+work done for, and lived on as little as possible himself, alone, in two
+dismal rooms. He was never merry or comfortable or happy, and he hated
+other people to be so, and that was the reason why he hated Christmas,
+because people _will_ be happy at Christmas, you know, if they possibly
+can, and like to have a little money to make themselves and others
+comfortable.
+
+Well, it was Christmas eve, a very cold and foggy one, and Mr. Scrooge,
+having given his poor clerk permission very unwillingly to spend
+Christmas day at home, locked up his office and went home himself in a
+very bad temper, and with a cold in his head. After having taken some
+gruel as he sat over a miserable fire in his dismal room, he got into
+bed, and had some wonderful and disagreeable dreams, to which we will
+leave him, whilst we see how Tiny Tim, the son of his poor clerk, spent
+Christmas day.
+
+The name of this clerk was Bob Cratchit. He had a wife and five other
+children besides Tim, who was a weak and delicate little cripple, and
+for this reason was dearly loved by his father and the rest of the
+family; not but what he was a dear little boy, too, gentle and patient
+and loving, with a sweet face of his own, which no one could help
+looking at.
+
+Whenever he could spare the time, it was Mr. Cratchit's delight to carry
+his little boy out on his shoulder to see the shops and the people; and
+to-day he had taken him to church for the first time.
+
+"Whatever has got your precious father and your brother Tiny Tim!"
+exclaimed Mrs. Cratchit, "here's dinner all ready to be dished up. I've
+never known him so late on Christmas day before."
+
+"Here he is, mother!" cried Belinda, and "here he is!" cried the other
+children.
+
+In came little Bob, the father, with at least three feet of comforter,
+exclusive of the fringe, hanging down before him; and his threadbare
+clothes darned up and brushed, to look just as well as possible; and
+Tiny Tim upon his shoulder. Alas for Tiny Tim, he bore a little crutch,
+and had his limbs supported by an iron frame!
+
+"Why, where's our Martha?" cried Bob Cratchit, looking round.
+
+"Not coming," said Mrs. Cratchit.
+
+"Not coming!" said Bob, with a sudden dropping in his high spirits; for
+he had been Tim's blood horse all the way from church, and had come home
+rampant. "Not coming upon Christmas day!"
+
+Martha didn't like to see him disappointed, if it were only in joke; so
+she came out sooner than had been agreed upon from behind the
+closet-door, and ran into his arms, while the two young Cratchits
+hustled Tiny Tim, and bore him off into the wash-house, that he might
+hear the pudding singing in the copper kettle.
+
+"And how did Tim behave?" asked Mrs. Cratchit.
+
+"As good as gold and better," replied his father. "I think, wife, the
+child gets thoughtful, sitting at home so much. He told me, coming home,
+that he hoped the people in church who saw he was a cripple, would be
+pleased to remember on Christmas day who it was who made the lame to
+walk."
+
+"Bless his sweet heart!" said the mother in a trembling voice, and the
+father's voice trembled, too, as he remarked that "Tiny Tim was growing
+strong and hearty at last."
+
+His active little crutch was heard upon the floor, and back came Tiny
+Tim before another word was spoken, led by his brother and sister to his
+stool beside the fire; while Bob, Master Peter, and the two young
+Cratchits (who seemed to be everywhere at once) went to fetch the goose,
+with which they soon returned in high procession.
+
+Such a bustle ensued that you might have thought a goose the rarest of
+all birds; a perfect marvel, to which a black swan was a matter of
+course--and in truth it was something very like it in that house. Mrs.
+Cratchit made the gravy (ready beforehand in a little saucepan) hissing
+hot; Master Peter mashed the potatoes with tremendous vigor; Miss
+Belinda sweetened up the apple-sauce; Martha dusted the hot plates; Bob
+took Tiny Tim beside him in a tiny corner at the table; the two young
+Cratchits set chairs for everybody, not forgetting themselves, and,
+mounting guard upon their posts, crammed spoons into their mouths, lest
+they should shriek for goose before their turn came to be helped. At
+last the dishes were set on, and grace was said. It was succeeded by a
+breathless pause, as Mrs. Cratchit, looking slowly all along the
+carving-knife, prepared to plunge it in the breast; but when she did,
+and when the long-expected gush of stuffing issued forth, one murmur of
+delight arose all round the board, and even Tiny Tim, excited by the two
+young Cratchits, beat on the table with the handle of his knife, and
+feebly cried Hurrah!
+
+There never was such a goose. Bob said he didn't believe there ever was
+such a goose cooked. Its tenderness and flavor, size, and cheapness were
+the themes of universal admiration. Eked out by apple-sauce and mashed
+potatoes, it was a sufficient dinner for the whole family; indeed, as
+Mrs. Cratchit said with great delight (surveying one small atom of a
+bone upon the dish), they hadn't ate it all at that! Yet everyone had
+had enough, and the youngest Cratchits, in particular, were steeped in
+sage and onions to the eyebrows! But now, the plates being changed by
+Miss Belinda, Mrs. Cratchit left the room alone--too nervous to bear
+witnesses--to take up the pudding and bring it in.
+
+Suppose it should not be done enough! Suppose it should break in turning
+out! Suppose somebody should have got over the wall of the back yard and
+stolen it, while they were merry with the goose--a supposition at which
+the two young Cratchits became livid! All sorts of horrors were
+supposed.
+
+Halloo! A great deal of steam! The pudding was out of the copper. A
+smell like a washing-day! That was the cloth. A smell like an
+eating-house and a pastrycook's next door to each other, with a
+laundress' next door to that! That was the pudding! In half a minute
+Mrs. Cratchit entered--flushed, but smiling proudly--with the pudding
+like a speckled cannon-ball, so hard and firm, blazing in half of
+half-a-quartern of lighted brandy, and decorated with Christmas holly
+stuck into the top.
+
+Oh, a wonderful pudding! Bob Cratchit said, and calmly too, that he
+regarded it as the greatest success achieved by Mrs. Cratchit since
+their marriage. Mrs. Cratchit said that, now the weight was off her
+mind, she would confess she had her doubts about the quantity of flour.
+Everybody had something to say about it, but nobody said or thought it
+was a small pudding for a large family. It would have been really wicked
+to do so. Any Cratchit would have blushed to hint at such a thing.
+
+At last the dinner was all done, the cloth was cleared, the hearth
+swept, and the fire made up. The hot stuff in the jug being tasted, and
+considered perfect, apples and oranges were put upon the table, and a
+shovel full of chestnuts on the fire. Then all the Cratchit family drew
+round the hearth in what Bob Cratchit called a circle, meaning half a
+one; and at Bob Cratchit's elbow stood the family display of glass. Two
+tumblers and a custard cup without a handle.
+
+These held the hot stuff from the jug, however, as well as golden
+goblets would have done; and Bob served it out with beaming looks, while
+the chestnuts on the fire sputtered and cracked noisily. Then Bob
+proposed:
+
+"A merry Christmas to us all, my dears. God bless us!"
+
+Which all the family re-echoed.
+
+"God bless us everyone!" said Tiny Tim, the last of all.
+
+Now I told you that Mr. Scrooge had some disagreeable and wonderful
+dreams on Christmas eve, and so he had; and in one of them he dreamt
+that a Christmas spirit showed him his clerk's home; he saw them all
+gathered round the fire, and heard them drink his health, and Tiny Tim's
+song, and he took special note of Tiny Tim himself.
+
+How Mr. Scrooge spent Christmas day we do not know. He may have remained
+in bed, having a cold, but on Christmas night he had more dreams, and
+in one of his dreams the spirit took him again to his clerk's poor home.
+The mother was doing some needlework, seated by the table, a tear
+dropped on it now and then, and she said, poor thing, that the work,
+which was black, hurt her eyes. The children sat, sad and silent, about
+the room, except Tiny Tim, who was not there. Upstairs the father, with
+his face hidden in his hands, sat beside a little bed, on which lay a
+tiny figure, white and still. "My little child, my pretty little child,"
+he sobbed, as the tears fell through his fingers on to the floor. "Tiny
+Tim died because his father was too poor to give him what was necessary
+to make him well; _you_ kept him poor;" said the dream-spirit to Mr.
+Scrooge. The father kissed the cold, little face on the bed, and went
+downstairs, where the sprays of holly still remained about the humble
+room; and taking his hat, went out, with a wistful glance at the little
+crutch in the corner as he shut the door. Mr. Scrooge saw all this, and
+many more things as strange and sad, the spirit took care of that; but,
+wonderful to relate, he woke the next morning feeling a different
+man--feeling as he had never felt in his life before. For after all, you
+know that what he had seen was no more than a dream; he knew that Tiny
+Tim was not dead, and Scrooge was resolved that Tiny Tim should not die
+if he could help it.
+
+"Why, I am as light as a feather, and as happy as an angel, and as merry
+as a schoolboy," Scrooge said to himself as he skipped into the next
+room to breakfast and threw on all the coals at once, and put two lumps
+of sugar in his tea. "I hope everybody had a merry Christmas, and here's
+a happy New Year to all the world."
+
+On that morning, the day after Christmas poor Bob Cratchit crept into
+the office a few minutes late, expecting to be roundly abused and
+scolded for it, but no such thing; his master was there with his back to
+a good fire, and actually smiling, and he shook hands with his clerk,
+telling him heartily he was going to raise his salary and asking quite
+affectionately after Tiny Tim! "And mind you make up a good fire in your
+room before you set to work, Bob," he said, as he closed his own door.
+
+Bob could hardly believe his eyes and ears, but it was all true. Such
+doings as they had on New Year's day had never been seen before in the
+Cratchits' home, nor such a turkey as Mr. Scrooge sent them for dinner.
+Tiny Tim had his share too, for Tiny Tim did not die, not a bit of it.
+Mr. Scrooge was a second father to him from that day, he wanted for
+nothing, and grew up strong and hearty. Mr. Scrooge loved him, and well
+he might, for was it not Tiny Tim who had without knowing it, through
+the Christmas dream-spirit, touched his hard heart and caused him to
+become a good and happy man?
+
+
+
+
+III.
+
+THE RUNAWAY COUPLE.
+
+
+THE Boots at the Holly Tree Inn was the young man named Cobbs, who
+blacked the shoes, and ran errands, and waited on the people at the inn;
+and this is the story that he told, one day.
+
+"Supposing a young gentleman not eight years old was to run away with a
+fine young woman of seven, would you consider that a queer start? That
+there is a start as I--the Boots at the Holly Tree Inn--have seen with
+my own eyes; and I cleaned the shoes they ran away in, and they was so
+little that I couldn't get my hand into 'em.
+
+"Master Harry Walmers' father, he lived at the Elms, away by Shooter's
+Hill, six or seven miles from London. He was uncommon proud of Master
+Harry, as he was his only child; but he didn't spoil him neither. He was
+a gentleman that had a will of his own, and an eye of his own, and that
+would be minded. Consequently, though he made quite a companion of the
+fine bright boy, still he kept the command over him, and the child _was_
+a child. I was under-gardener there at that time; and one morning
+Master Harry, he comes to me and says--
+
+"'Cobbs, how should you spell Norah, if you was asked?' and then begun
+cutting it in print, all over the fence.
+
+"He couldn't say he had taken particular notice of children before that;
+but really it was pretty to see them two mites a-going about the place
+together, deep in love. And the courage of the boy! Bless your soul,
+he'd have throwed off his little hat, and tucked up his little sleeves,
+and gone in at a lion, he would, if they had happened to meet one and
+she had been frightened of him. One day he stops along, with her, where
+Boots was hoeing weeds in the gravel, and says--speaking up, 'Cobbs,' he
+says, 'I like you.' 'Do you, sir? I'm proud to hear it.' 'Yes, I do,
+Cobbs. Why do I like you, do you think, Cobbs?' 'Don't know, Master
+Harry, I am sure.' 'Because Norah likes you, Cobbs.' 'Indeed, sir?
+That's very gratifying.' 'Gratifying, Cobbs? It's better than millions
+of the brightest diamonds to be liked by Norah.' 'Certainly, sir.'
+'You're going away, ain't you, Cobbs?' 'Yes, sir.' 'Would you like
+another situation, Cobbs?' 'Well, sir, I shouldn't object, if it was a
+good 'un.' 'Then, Cobbs,' says he, 'you shall be our head-gardener when
+we are married.' And he tucks her, in her little sky-blue mantle, under
+his arm, and walks away.
+
+"It was better than a picter, and equal to a play, to see them babies
+with their long, bright, curling hair, their sparkling eyes, and their
+beautiful light tread, a-rambling about the garden, deep in love. Boots
+was of opinion that the birds believed they was birds, and kept up with
+'em, singing to please 'em. Sometimes, they would creep under the Tulip
+tree, and would sit there with their arms round one another's necks, and
+their soft cheeks touching, a-reading about the prince and the dragon,
+and the good and bad enchanters, and the king's fair daughter. Sometimes
+he would hear them planning about having a house in a forest, keeping
+bees and a cow, and living entirely on milk and honey. Once he came upon
+them by the pond, and heard Master Harry say, 'Adorable Norah, kiss me,
+and say you love me to distraction, or I'll jump in headforemost.' And
+Boots made no question he would have done it, if she hadn't done as he
+asked her.
+
+"'Cobbs,' says Master Harry, one evening, when Cobbs was watering the
+flowers, 'I am going on a visit, this present mid-summer, to my
+grandmamma's at York.'
+
+"'Are you, indeed, sir? I hope you'll have a pleasant time. I am going
+into Yorkshire myself when I leave here.'
+
+"'Are you going to your grandmamma's, Cobbs?'
+
+"'No, sir. I haven't got such a thing.'
+
+"'Not as a grandmamma, Cobbs?'
+
+"'No, sir.'
+
+"The boy looked on at the watering of the flowers for a little while and
+then said, 'I shall be very glad, indeed, to go, Cobbs--Norah's going.'
+
+"'You'll be all right then, sir,' says Cobbs, 'with your beautiful
+sweetheart by your side.'
+
+"'Cobbs,' returned the boy, flushing, 'I never let anybody joke about it
+when I can prevent them.'
+
+"'It wasn't a joke, sir,' says Cobbs, with humility--'wasn't so meant.'
+
+"'I am glad of that, Cobbs, because I like you! you know, and you're
+going to live with us, Cobbs.
+
+"'Sir.'
+
+"'What do you think my grandmamma gives me, when I go down there?'
+
+"'I couldn't so much as make a guess, sir.'
+
+"'A Bank of England five-pound note, Cobbs.'[A]
+
+"'Whew!' says Cobbs, 'that's a spanking sum of money, Master Harry.'
+
+"'A person could do a great deal with such a sum of money as that.
+Couldn't a person, Cobbs?'
+
+"'I believe you, sir!'
+
+"'Cobbs,' said the boy, 'I'll tell you a secret. At Norah's house they
+have been joking her about me, and pretending to laugh at our being
+engaged. Pretending to make game of it, Cobbs!'
+
+"'Such, sir,' says Cobbs, 'is the wickedness of human natur'.'
+
+"The boy, looking exactly like his father, stood for a few minutes with
+his glowing face towards the sunset, and then departed with, 'Good
+night, Cobbs. I'm going in.'
+
+"I was the Boots at the Holly Tree Inn when one summer afternoon the
+coach drives up, and out of the coach gets these two children.
+
+"The guard says to our governor, the inn-keeper, 'I don't quite make out
+these little passengers, but the young gentleman's words was, that they
+were to be brought here.' The young gentleman gets out; hands his lady
+out; gives the driver something for himself; says to our governor,
+'We're to stop here to-night, please. Sitting-room and two bedrooms will
+be required. Chops and cherry-pudding for two!' and tucks her, in her
+little sky-blue mantle, under his arm, and walks into the house much
+bolder than brass.
+
+"Boots leaves me to judge what the amazement of that establishment was
+when those two tiny creatures, all alone by themselves, was marched into
+the parlor--much more so when he, who had seen them without their seeing
+him, gave the governor his views of the errand they was upon. 'Cobbs,'
+says the governor, 'if this is so, I must set off myself to York and
+quiet their friends' minds. In which case you must keep your eye upon
+'em, and humor 'em, till I come back. But, before I take these measures,
+Cobbs, I should wish you to find out from themselves whether your
+opinions is correct.' 'Sir, to you,' says Cobbs, 'that shall be done
+directly.'
+
+"So Boots goes up stairs to the parlor, and there he finds Master Harry
+on an enormous sofa a-drying the eyes of Miss Norah with his
+pocket-hankecher. Their little legs were entirely off the ground of
+course, and it really is not possible for Boots to express to me how
+small them children looked.
+
+"'It's Cobbs! It's Cobbs!' cries Master Harry, and comes running to him,
+and catching hold of his hand. Miss Norah comes running to him on
+t'other side, and catching hold of his t'other hand, and they both jump
+for joy.
+
+"'I see you a-getting out, sir,' says Cobbs. 'I thought it was you. I
+thought I couldn't be mistaken in your height and figure. What's the
+object of your journey, sir? Are you going to be married?'
+
+"'We are going to be married, Cobbs, at Gretna Green,' returned the boy.
+'We have run away on purpose. Norah has been in rather low spirits,
+Cobbs; but she'll be happy, now we have found you to be our friend.'
+
+"'Thank you, sir, and thank _you_, miss,' says Cobbs, 'for your good
+opinion. Did you bring any luggage with you, sir?'
+
+"If I will believe Boots when he gives me his word and honor upon it,
+the lady had got a parasol, a smelling-bottle, a round and a half of
+cold buttered toast, eight peppermint drops, and a hair-brush--seemingly
+a doll's. The gentleman had got about half a dozen yards of string, a
+knife, three or four sheets of writing-paper folded up surprisingly
+small, an orange, and a china mug with his name upon it.
+
+"'What may be the exact natur' of your plans, sir?' says Cobbs.
+
+"'To go on,' replied the boy--which the courage of that boy was
+something wonderful!--'in the morning, and be married to-morrow.'
+
+"'Just so, sir,' says Cobbs. 'Would it meet your views, sir, if I was to
+go with you?'
+
+"When Cobbs said this, they both jumped for joy again, and cried out,
+'Oh, yes, yes, Cobbs! Yes!'
+
+"'Well, sir,' says Cobbs. 'If you will excuse my having the freedom to
+give an opinion, what I should recommend would be this. I'm acquainted
+with a pony, sir, which, put in a phaeton that I could borrow, would
+take you and Mrs. Harry Walmers, Jr. (myself driving, if you agree), to
+the end of your journey in a very short space of time. I am not
+altogether sure, sir, that this pony will be at liberty to-morrow, but
+even if you had to wait over to-morrow for him, it might be worth your
+while. As to the small account for your board here, sir, in case you was
+to find yourself running at all short, that don't signify, because I'm a
+part proprietor of this inn, and it could stand over.'
+
+"Boots tells me that when they clapped their hands and jumped for joy
+again, and called him, 'Good Cobbs!' and 'Dear Cobbs!' and bent across
+him to kiss one another in the delight of their trusting hearts, he felt
+himself the meanest rascal for deceiving 'em that ever was born.
+
+"'Is there anything you want just at present, sir?' says Cobbs, mortally
+ashamed of himself.
+
+"'We would like some cakes after dinner,' answered Master Harry, folding
+his arms, putting out one leg, and looking straight at him, 'and two
+apples--and jam. With dinner, we should like to have toast and water.
+But Norah has always been accustomed to half a glass of currant wine at
+dessert. And so have I.'
+
+"'It shall be ordered at the bar, sir,' says Cobbs, and away he went.
+
+"'The way in which the women of that house--without exception--everyone
+of 'em--married and single, took to that boy when they heard the story,
+Boots considers surprising. It was as much as he could do to keep 'em
+from dashing into the room and kissing him. They climbed up all sorts of
+places, at the risk of their lives, to look at him through a pane of
+glass. They were seven deep at the key-hole. They were out of their
+minds about him and his bold spirit.
+
+"In the evening Boots went into the room, to see how the runaway couple
+was getting on. The gentleman was on the window-seat, supporting the
+lady in his arms. She had tears upon her face, and was lying, very tired
+and half-asleep, with her head upon his shoulder.
+
+"'Mrs. Harry Walmers, Jr., tired, sir?' says Cobbs.
+
+"'Yes, she is tired, Cobbs; but she is not used to be away from home,
+and she has been in low spirits again. Cobbs, do you think you could
+bring a biffin, please?'
+
+"'I ask your pardon, sir,' says Cobbs. 'What was it you--'
+
+"'I think a Norfolk biffin[B] would rouse her, Cobbs. She is very fond
+of them.'
+
+"Boots withdrew in search of the required restorative, and, when he
+brought it in, the gentleman handed it to the lady, and fed her with a
+spoon, and took a little himself. The lady being heavy with sleep, and
+rather cross. 'What should you think, sir,' says Cobbs, 'of a chamber
+candlestick?' The gentleman approved; the chambermaid went first, up the
+great staircase; the lady, in her sky-blue mantle, followed, gallantly
+led by the gentleman; the gentleman kissed her at the door, and retired
+to his own room, where Boots softly locked him up.
+
+"Boots couldn't but feel what a base deceiver he was when they asked him
+at breakfast (they had ordered sweet milk-and-water, and toast and
+currant jelly, overnight) about the pony. It really was as much as he
+could do, he don't mind confessing to me, to look them two young things
+in the face, and think how wicked he had grown up to be. Howsomever, he
+went on a-lying like a Trojan, about the pony. He told 'em it did so
+unfortunately happen that the pony was half-clipped, you see, and that
+he couldn't be taken out in that state for fear that it should strike to
+his inside. But that he'd be finished clipping in the course of the day,
+and that to-morrow morning at eight o'clock the phaeton would be ready.
+Boots' view of the whole case, looking back upon it in my room, is, that
+Mrs. Harry Walmers, Jr., was beginning to give in. She hadn't had her
+hair curled when she went to bed, and she didn't seem quite up to
+brushing it herself, and it's getting in her eyes put her out. But
+nothing put out Master Harry. He sat behind his breakfast cup, a-tearing
+away at the jelly, as if he had been his own father.
+
+"After breakfast Boots is inclined to think that they drawed
+soldiers--at least, he knows that many such was found in the fireplace,
+all on horseback. In the course of the morning Master Harry rang the
+bell--it was surprising how that there boy did carry on--and said in a
+sprightly way, 'Cobbs, is there any good walks in this neighborhood?'
+
+"'Yes, sir,' says Cobbs. 'There's Love Lane.'
+
+"'Get out with you, Cobbs!'--that was that there boy's
+expression--'you're joking.'
+
+"'Begging your pardon, sir,' says Cobbs, 'there really is Love Lane. And
+a pleasant walk it is, and proud I shall be to show it to yourself and
+Mrs. Harry Walmers, Jr.'
+
+"'Norah, dear,' said Master Harry, 'this is curious. We really ought to
+see Love Lane. Put on your bonnet, my sweetest darling, and we will go
+there with Cobbs.'
+
+"Boots leaves me to judge what a beast he felt himself to be, when that
+young pair told him, as they all three jogged along together, that they
+had made up their minds to give him two thousand guineas a year as
+head-gardener, on account of his being so true a friend to 'em. Boots
+could have wished at the moment that the earth would have opened and
+swallowed him up; he felt so mean with their beaming eyes a-looking at
+him, and believing him. Well, sir, he turned the conversation as well as
+he could, and he took 'em down Love Lane to the water-meadows, and there
+Master Harry would have drowned himself in half a moment more, a-getting
+out a water-lily for her--but nothing frightened that boy. Well, sir,
+they was tired out. All being so new and strange to 'em, they was tired
+as tired could be. And they laid down on a bank of daisies, like the
+children in the wood, leastways meadows, and fell asleep.
+
+"Well, sir, they woke up at last, and then one thing was getting pretty
+clear to Boots, namely, that Mrs. Harry Walmers', Jr., temper was on the
+move. When Master Harry took her round the waist she said he 'teased her
+so,' and when he says, 'Norah, my young May Moon, your Harry tease you?'
+she tells him, 'Yes; and I want to go home!'
+
+"However, Master Harry he kept up, and his noble heart was as fond as
+ever. Mrs. Walmers turned very sleepy about dusk and began to cry.
+Therefore, Mrs. Walmers went off to bed as per yesterday; and Master
+Harry ditto repeated.
+
+"About eleven or twelve at night comes back the inn-keeper in a chaise,
+along with Mr. Walmers and an elderly lady. Mr. Walmers looks amused and
+very serious, both at once, and says to our missis, 'We are very much
+indebted to you, ma'am, for your kind care of our little children, which
+we can never sufficiently acknowledge. Pray, ma'am where is my boy?' Our
+missis says, 'Cobbs has the dear children in charge, sir. Cobbs, show
+forty!' Then he says to Cobbs, 'Ah, Cobbs! I am glad to see _you_. I
+understand you was here!' And Cobbs says, 'Yes, sir. Your most obedient,
+sir.'
+
+"I may be surprised to hear Boots say it, perhaps, but Boots assures me
+that his heart beat like a hammer, going up-stairs. 'I beg your pardon,
+sir,' says he, while unlocking the door; 'I hope you are not angry with
+Master Harry. For Master Harry is a fine boy, sir, and will do you
+credit and honor.' And Boots signifies to me that if the fine boy's
+father had contradicted him in the daring state of mind in which he then
+was, he thinks he should have 'fetched him a crack,' and taken the
+consequences.
+
+"But Mr. Walmers only says, 'No, Cobbs. No, my good fellow. Thank you!'
+And the door being open, goes in.
+
+"Boots goes in too, holding the light, and he sees Mr. Walmers go up to
+the bedside, bend gently down, and kiss the little sleeping face. Then
+he stands looking at it for a minute, looking wonderfully like it; and
+then he gently shakes the little shoulder.
+
+"'Harry, my dear boy! Harry!'
+
+"Master Harry starts up and looks at him. Looks at Cobbs, too. Such is
+the honor of that mite that he looks at Cobbs to see whether he has
+brought him into trouble.
+
+"'I am not angry, my child. I only want you to dress yourself and come
+home.'
+
+"'Yes, pa.'
+
+"Master Harry dresses himself quickly. His breast begins to swell when
+he has nearly finished, and it swells more and more as he stands
+a-looking at his father; his father standing a-looking at him, the quiet
+image of him.
+
+"'Please may I'--the spirit of that little creatur', and the way he kept
+his rising tears down!--'Please, dear pa--may I--kiss Norah before I
+go?'
+
+"'You may, my child.'
+
+"So he takes Master Harry in his hand, and Boots leads the way with the
+candle, and they come to that other bedroom; where the elderly lady is
+seated by the bed, and poor little Mrs. Harry Walmers, Jr., is fast
+asleep. There the father lifts the child up to the pillow, and he lays
+his little face down for an instant by the little warm face of poor
+unconscious little Mrs. Harry Walmers, Jr., and gently draws it to
+him--a sight so touching to the chambermaids who are peeping through the
+door that one of them calls out, 'It's a shame to part 'em!' But this
+chambermaid was always, as Boots informs me, a soft-hearted one. Not
+that there was any harm in that girl. Far from it."
+
+FOOTNOTES:
+
+[A] For the benefit of some of our young readers, it may be well to
+explain that this is about the same as a bill of twenty-five dollars
+would be in America.
+
+[B] A biffin is a red apple, growing near Norfolk, and generally eaten
+after having been baked.
+
+
+
+
+IV.
+
+LITTLE DORRIT.
+
+
+MANY years ago, when people could be put in prison for debt, a poor
+gentleman, who was unfortunate enough to lose all his money, was brought
+to the Marshalsea prison, which was the prison where debtors were kept.
+As there seemed no prospect of being able to pay his debts, his wife and
+their two little children came to live there with him. The elder child
+was a boy of three; the younger a little girl of two years old, and not
+long afterwards another little girl was born. The three children played
+in the courtyard, and on the whole were happy, for they were too young
+to remember a happier state of things.
+
+But the youngest child, who had never been outside the prison walls, was
+a thoughtful little creature, and wondered what the outside world could
+be like. Her great friend, the turnkey, who was also her godfather,
+became very fond of her, and as soon as she could walk and talk he
+brought a little arm-chair and stood it by his fire at the lodge, and
+coaxed her with cheap toys to come and sit with him. In return the child
+loved him dearly, and would often bring her doll to dress and undress
+as she sat in the little arm-chair. She was still a very tiny creature
+when she began to understand that everyone did not live locked up inside
+high walls with spikes at the top, and though she and the rest of the
+family might pass through the door that the great key opened, her father
+could not; and she would look at him with a wondering pity in her tender
+little heart.
+
+One day, she was sitting in the lodge gazing wistfully up at the sky
+through the barred window. The turnkey, after watching her some time,
+said:
+
+"Thinking of the fields, ain't you?"
+
+"Where are they?" she asked.
+
+"Why, they're--over there, my dear," said the turnkey, waving his key
+vaguely, "just about there."
+
+"Does anybody open them and shut them? Are they locked?"
+
+"Well," said the turnkey, not knowing what to say, "not in general."
+
+"Are they pretty, Bob?" She called him Bob, because he wished it.
+
+"Lovely. Full of flowers. There's buttercups, and there's daisies, and
+there's--" here he hesitated not knowing the names of many
+flowers--"there's dandelions, and all manner of games."
+
+"Is it very pleasant to be there, Bob?"
+
+"Prime," said the turnkey.
+
+"Was father ever there?"
+
+"Hem!" coughed the turnkey. "O yes, he was there, sometimes."
+
+"Is he sorry not to be there now?"
+
+"N--not particular," said the turnkey.
+
+"Nor any of the people?" she asked, glancing at the listless crowd
+within. "O are you quite sure and certain, Bob?"
+
+At this point, Bob gave in and changed the subject to candy. But after
+this chat, the turnkey and little Amy would go out on his free Sunday
+afternoons to some meadows or green lanes, and she would pick grass and
+flowers to bring home, while he smoked his pipe; and then they would go
+to some tea-gardens for shrimps and tea and other delicacies, and would
+come back hand in hand, unless she was very tired and had fallen asleep
+on his shoulder.
+
+When Amy was only eight years old, her mother died; and the poor father
+was more helpless and broken-down than ever, and as Fanny was a careless
+child and Edward idle, the little one, who had the bravest and truest
+heart, was led by her love and unselfishness to be the little mother of
+the forlorn family, and struggled to get some little education for
+herself and her brother and sister.
+
+At first, such a baby could do little more than sit with her father,
+deserting her livelier place by the high fender, and quietly watching
+him. But this made her so far necessary to him that he became accustomed
+to her, and began to be sensible of missing her when she was not there.
+Through this little gate, she passed out of her childhood into the
+care-laden world.
+
+What her pitiful look saw, at that early time, in her father, in her
+sister, in her brother, in the jail; how much or how little of the
+wretched truth it pleased God to make plain to her, lies hidden with
+many mysteries. It is enough that she was inspired to be something which
+was not what the rest were, and to be that something, different and
+laborious, for the sake of the rest. Inspired? Yes. Shall we speak of a
+poet or a priest, and not of the heart impelled by love and
+self-devotion to the lowliest work in the lowliest way of life?
+
+The family stayed so long in the prison that the old man came to be
+known as "The Father of the Marshalsea;" and little Amy, who had never
+known any other home, as "The Child of the Marshalsea."
+
+At thirteen she could read and keep accounts--that is, could put down in
+words and figures how much the bare necessaries that they wanted would
+cost, and how much less they had to buy them with. She had been, by
+snatches of a few weeks at a time, to an evening school outside, and got
+her sister and brother sent to day-schools from time to time during
+three or four years. There was no teaching for any of them at home; but
+she knew well--no one better--that a man so broken as to be the Father
+of the Marshalsea, could be no father to his own children.
+
+To these scanty means of improvement, she added another of her own
+contriving. Once among the crowd of prisoners there appeared a
+dancing-master. Her sister had a great desire to learn the
+dancing-master's art, and seemed to have a taste that way. At thirteen
+years old, the Child of the Marshalsea presented herself to the
+dancing-master, with a little bag in her hand, and offered her humble
+petition.
+
+"If you please, I was born here, sir."
+
+"Oh! you are the young lady, are you?" said the dancing-master,
+surveying the small figure and uplifted face.
+
+"Yes, sir."
+
+"And what can I do for you?" said the dancing-master.
+
+"Nothing for me, sir, thank you," anxiously undrawing the strings of the
+little bag; "but if, while you stay here, you could be so kind as to
+teach my sister cheap--"
+
+"My child, I'll teach her for nothing," said the dancing-master,
+shutting up the bag. He was as good-natured a dancing-master as ever
+danced to the Insolvent Court, and he kept his word. The sister was so
+apt a pupil, and the dancing-master had such abundant time to give her,
+that wonderful progress was made. Indeed, the dancing-master was so
+proud of it, and so wishful to show it before he left, to a few select
+friends among the collegians (the debtors in the prison were called
+"collegians"), that at six o'clock on a certain fine morning, an
+exhibition was held in the yard--the college-rooms being of too small
+size for the purpose--in which so much ground was covered, and the steps
+were so well executed, that the dancing-master, having to play his
+fiddle besides, was thoroughly tired out.
+
+The success of this beginning, which led to the dancing-master's
+continuing his teaching after his release, led the poor child to try
+again. She watched and waited months for a seamstress. In the fullness
+of time a milliner came in, sent there like all the rest for a debt
+which she could not pay; and to her she went to ask a favor for
+herself.
+
+"I beg your pardon, ma'am," she said, looking timidly round the door of
+the milliner, whom she found in tears and in bed: "but I was born here."
+
+Everybody seemed to hear of her as soon as they arrived; for the
+milliner sat up in bed, drying her eyes, and said, just as the
+dancing-master had said:
+
+"Oh! _you_ are the child, are you?"
+
+"Yes, ma'am."
+
+"I am sorry I haven't got anything for you," said the milliner, shaking
+her head.
+
+"It's not that, ma'am. If you please, I want to learn needlework."
+
+"Why should you do that," returned the milliner, "with me before you? It
+has not done me much good."
+
+"Nothing--whatever it is--seems to have done anybody much good who comes
+here," she returned in her simple way; "but I want to learn, just the
+same."
+
+"I am afraid you are so weak, you see," the milliner objected.
+
+"I don't think I am weak, ma'am."
+
+"And you are so very, very little, you see," the milliner objected.
+
+"Yes, I am afraid I am very little indeed," returned the Child of the
+Marshalsea; and so began to sob over that unfortunate smallness of
+hers, which came so often in her way. The milliner--who was not unkind
+or hardhearted, only badly in debt--was touched, took her in hand with
+good-will, found her the most patient and earnest of pupils, and made
+her a good workwoman.
+
+In course of time, the Father of the Marshalsea gradually developed a
+new trait of character. He was very greatly ashamed of having his two
+daughters work for their living; and tried to make it appear that they
+were only doing work for pleasure, not for pay. But at the same time he
+would take money from any one who would give it to him, without any
+sense of shame. With the same hand that had pocketed a fellow-prisoner's
+half-crown half an hour ago, he would wipe away the tears that streamed
+over his cheeks if anything was spoken of his daughters' earning their
+bread. So, over and above her other daily cares, the Child of the
+Marshalsea had always upon her the care of keeping up the make-believe
+that they were all idle beggars together.
+
+The sister became a dancer. There was a ruined uncle in the family
+group--ruined by his brother, the Father of the Marshalsea, and knowing
+no more how, than his ruiner did, but taking the fact as something that
+could not be helped. Naturally a retired and simple man, he had shown no
+particular sense of being ruined, at the time when that calamity fell
+upon him, further than he left off washing himself when the shock was
+announced, and never took to washing his face and hands any more. He had
+been a rather poor musician in his better days; and when he fell with
+his brother, supported himself in a poor way by playing a clarionet as
+dirty as himself in a small theatre band. It was the theatre in which
+his niece became a dancer; he had been a fixture there a long time when
+she took her poor station in it; and he accepted the task of serving as
+her guardian, just as he would have accepted an illness, a legacy, a
+feast, starvation--anything but soap.
+
+To enable this girl to earn her few weekly shillings, it was necessary
+for the Child of the Marshalsea to go through a careful form with her
+father.
+
+"Fanny is not going to live with us, just now, father. She will be here
+a good deal in the day, but she is going to live outside with uncle."
+
+"You surprise me. Why?"
+
+"I think uncle wants a companion, father. He should be attended to and
+looked after."
+
+"A companion? He passes much of his time here. And you attend and look
+after him, Amy, a great deal more than ever your sister will. You all go
+out so much; you all go out so much."
+
+This was to keep up the form and pretense of his having no idea that Amy
+herself went out by the day to work.
+
+"But we are always very glad to come home father; now, are we not? And
+as to Fanny, perhaps besides keeping uncle company and taking care of
+him, it may be as well for her not quite to live here always. She was
+not born here as I was you know, father."
+
+"Well, Amy, well. I don't quite follow you, but it's natural I suppose
+that Fanny should prefer to be outside, and even that you often should,
+too. So, you and Fanny and your uncle, my dear, shall have your own way.
+Good, good. I'll not meddle; don't mind me."
+
+To get her brother out of the prison; out of the low work of running
+errands for the prisoners outside, and out of the bad company into which
+he had fallen, was her hardest task. At eighteen years of age her
+brother Edward would have dragged on from hand to mouth, from hour to
+hour, from penny to penny, until eighty. Nobody got into the prison from
+whom he gained anything useful or good, and she could find no patron
+for him but her old friend and godfather, the turnkey.
+
+"Dear Bob," said she, "what is to become of poor Tip?" His name was
+Edward, and Ted had been changed into Tip, within the walls.
+
+The turnkey had strong opinions of his own as to what would become of
+poor Tip, and had even gone so far with the view of preventing their
+fulfilment, as to talk to Tip in urging him to run away and serve his
+country as a soldier. But Tip had thanked him, and said he didn't seem
+to care for his country.
+
+"Well, my dear," said the turnkey, "something ought to be done with him.
+Suppose I try and get him into the law?"
+
+"That would be so good of you, Bob!"
+
+The turnkey now began to speak to the lawyers as they passed in and out
+of the prison. He spoke so perseveringly that a stool and twelve
+shillings a week were at last found for Tip in the office of a lawyer at
+Clifford's Inn, in the Palace Court.
+
+Tip idled in Clifford's Inn for six months, and at the end of that term
+sauntered back one evening with his hands in his pockets, and remarked
+to his sister that he was not going back again.
+
+"Not going back again?" said the poor little anxious Child of the
+Marshalsea, always calculating and planning for Tip, in the front rank
+of her charges.
+
+"I am so tired of it," said Tip, "that I have cut it."
+
+Tip tired of everything. With intervals of Marshalsea lounging, and
+errand-running, his small second mother, aided by her trusty friend, got
+him into a warehouse, into a market garden, into the hop trade, into the
+law again, into an auctioneer's, into a brewery, into a stockbroker's,
+into the law again, into a coach office, into a wagon office, into the
+law again, into a general dealer's, into a distillery, into the law
+again, into a wool house, into a dry goods house, into the fish-market,
+into the foreign fruit trade, and into the docks. But whatever Tip went
+into he came out of tired, announcing that he had cut it. Wherever he
+went, this useless Tip appeared to take the prison walls with him, and
+to set them up in such trade or calling; and to prowl about within their
+narrow limits in the old slipshod, purposeless, down-at-heel way; until
+the real immovable Marshalsea walls asserted their power over him and
+brought him back.
+
+Nevertheless, the brave little creature did so fix her heart on her
+brother's rescue that, while he was ringing out these doleful changes,
+she pinched and scraped enough together to ship him for Canada. When he
+was tired of nothing to do, and disposed in its turn to cut even that,
+he graciously consented to go to Canada. And there was grief in her
+bosom over parting with him, and joy in the hope of his being put in a
+straight course at last.
+
+"God bless you, dear Tip. Don't be too proud to come and see us, when
+you have made your fortune."
+
+"All right!" said Tip, and went.
+
+But not all the way to Canada; in fact, not further than Liverpool.
+After making the voyage to that port from London, he found himself so
+strongly impelled to cut the vessel, that he resolved to walk back
+again. Carrying out which intention, he presented himself before her at
+the expiration of a month, in rags, without shoes, and much more tired
+than ever.
+
+At length, after another period of running errands, he found a pursuit
+for himself, and announced it.
+
+"Amy, I have got a situation."
+
+"Have you really and truly, Tip?"
+
+"All right. I shall do now. You needn't look anxious about me any more,
+old girl."
+
+"What is it, Tip?"
+
+"Why, you know Slingo by sight?"
+
+"Not the man they call the dealer?"
+
+"That's the chap. He'll be out on Monday, and he's going to give me a
+berth."
+
+"What is he a dealer in, Tip?"
+
+"Horses. All right! I shall do now, Amy."
+
+She lost sight of him for months afterwards, and only heard from him
+once. A whisper passed among the elder prisoners that he had been seen
+at a mock auction in Moorfields, pretending to buy plated articles for
+real silver, and paying for them with the greatest liberality in
+bank-notes; but it never reached her ears. One evening she was alone at
+work--standing up at the window, to save the twilight lingering above
+the wall--when he opened the door and walked in.
+
+She kissed and welcomed him; but was afraid to ask him any question. He
+saw how anxious and timid she was, and appeared sorry.
+
+"I am afraid, Amy, you'll be vexed this time. Upon my life I am!"
+
+"I am very sorry to hear you say so, Tip. Have you come back?"
+
+"Why--yes."
+
+"Not expecting this time that what you had found would answer very well,
+I am less surprised and sorry than I might have been, Tip."
+
+"Ah! But that's not the worst of it."
+
+"Not the worst of it?"
+
+"Don't look so startled. No, Amy, not the worst of it. I have come back,
+you see; but--_don't_ look so startled--I have come back in what I may
+call a new way. I am off the volunteer list altogether. I am in now, as
+one of the regulars. I'm here in prison for debt, like everybody else."
+
+"Oh! Don't say that you are a prisoner, Tip! Don't, don't!"
+
+"Well, I don't want to say it," he returned in unwilling tone; "but if
+you can't understand me without my saying it, what am I to do? I am in
+for forty pound odd."
+
+For the first time in all those years, she sunk under her cares. She
+cried, with her clasped hands lifted above her head, that it would kill
+their father if he ever knew it; and fell down at Tip's worthless feet.
+
+It was easier for Tip to bring her to her senses than for her to bring
+_him_ to understand that the Father of the Marshalsea would be beside
+himself if he knew the truth. Tip thought that there was nothing strange
+in being there a prisoner, but he agreed that his father should not be
+told about it. There were plenty of reasons that could be given for his
+return; it was accounted for to the father in the usual way; and the
+collegians, with a better understanding of the kind fraud than Tip,
+stood by it faithfully.
+
+This was the life, and this the history, of the Child of the Marshalsea,
+at twenty-two. With a still abiding interest in the one miserable yard
+and block of houses as her birthplace and home, she passed to and fro in
+it shrinking now, with a womanly consciousness that she was pointed out
+to everyone. Since she had begun to work beyond the walls, she had found
+it necessary to hide where she lived, and to come and go secretly as she
+could, between the free city and the iron gates, outside of which she
+had never slept in her life. Her original timidity had grown with this
+concealment, and her light step and her little figure shunned the
+thronged streets while they passed along them.
+
+Worldly wise in hard and poor necessities, she was innocent in all
+things else. Innocent, in the mist through which she saw her father, and
+the prison, and the dark living river that flowed through it and flowed
+on.
+
+[Illustration: "Mr. Clennam Followed Her Home."
+
+                                       Page 65]
+
+This was the life, and this the history, of Little Dorrit, until the son
+of a lady, Mrs. Clennam, to whose house Amy went to do needlework,
+became interested in the pale, patient little creature. He followed
+her to her home one day and when he found that it was the debtor's
+prison, he walked in. Learning her sad history from her father, Arthur
+Clennam resolved to do his best to try to get him released and to help
+them all.
+
+One day when he was walking home with Amy to try to find out the names
+of some of the people her father owed money to, a voice was heard
+calling, "Little mother, little mother," and a strange figure came
+bouncing up to them and fell down, scattering her basketful of potatoes
+on the ground. "Oh Maggie," said Amy, "what a clumsy child you are!"
+
+She was about eight and twenty, with large bones, large features, large
+hands and feet, large eyes, and no hair. Amy told Mr. Clennam that
+Maggie was the granddaughter of her old nurse, who had been dead a long
+time, and that her grandmother had been very unkind to her and beat her.
+
+"When Maggie was ten years old she had a fever, and she has never grown
+older since."
+
+"Ten years old," said Maggie. "But what a nice hospital! So comfortable,
+wasn't it? Such a 'e'v'nly place! Such beds there is there! Such
+lemonades! Such oranges! Such delicious broth and wine! Such chicking!
+Oh, AIN'T it a delightful place to stop at!"
+
+"Poor Maggie thought that a hospital was the nicest place in all the
+world, because she had never seen another home as good. For years and
+years she looked back to the hospital as a sort of heaven on earth."
+
+"Then when she came out, her grandmother did not know what to do with
+her, and was very unkind. But after some time Maggie tried to improve,
+and was very attentive and industrious and now she can earn her own
+living entirely, sir!"
+
+Amy did not say who had taken pains to teach and encourage the poor
+half-witted creature, but Mr. Clennam guessed from the name "little
+mother" and the fondness of the poor creature for Amy.
+
+One cold, wet evening, Amy and Maggie went to Mr. Clennam's house to
+thank him for having freed Edward from the prison, and on coming out
+found it was too late to get home, as the gate was locked. They tried to
+get in at Maggie's lodgings, but, though they knocked twice, the people
+were asleep. As Amy did not wish to disturb them, they wandered about
+all night, sometimes sitting at the gate of the prison, Maggie shivering
+and whimpering.
+
+"It will soon be over, dear," said patient Amy.
+
+"Oh, it's all very well for you, mother," said Maggie, "but I'm a poor
+thing, only ten years old."
+
+Thanks to Mr. Clennam, a great change took place in the fortunes of the
+family, and not long after this wretched night it was discovered that
+Mr. Dorrit was owner of a large property, and they became very rich.
+
+But Little Dorrit never forgot, as, sad to say, the rest of the family
+did, the friends who had been kind to them in their poverty; and when,
+in his turn, Mr. Clennam became a prisoner in the Marshalsea, Little
+Dorrit came to comfort and console him, and after many changes of
+fortune she became his wife, and they lived happy ever after.
+
+
+
+
+V.
+
+THE TOY-MAKER AND HIS BLIND DAUGHTER.
+
+
+CALEB PLUMMER and his blind daughter lived alone in a little cracked
+nutshell of a house. They were toy-makers, and their house, which was so
+small that it might have been knocked to pieces with a hammer, and
+carried away in a cart, was stuck like a toadstool on to the premises of
+Messrs. Gruff & Tackleton, the toy merchants for whom they worked--the
+latter of whom was himself both Gruff and Tackleton in one.
+
+I am saying that Caleb and his blind daughter lived here. I should say
+Caleb did, while his daughter lived in an enchanted palace, which her
+father's love had created for her. She did not know that the ceilings
+were cracked, the plaster tumbling down, and the woodwork rotten; that
+everything was old and ugly and poverty-stricken about her, and that her
+father was a gray-haired, stooping old man, and the master for whom they
+worked a hard and brutal taskmaster; oh, dear no, she fancied a pretty,
+cosy, compact little home full of tokens of a kind master's care, a
+smart, brisk, gallant-looking father, and a handsome and noble-looking
+toy merchant who was an angel of goodness.
+
+This was all Caleb's doing. When his blind daughter was a baby he had
+determined, in his great love and pity for her, that her loss of sight
+should be turned into a blessing, and her life as happy as he could make
+it. And she was happy; everything about her she saw with her father's
+eyes, in the rainbow-colored light with which it was his care and
+pleasure to invest it.
+
+Caleb and his daughter were at work together in their usual
+working-room, which served them for their ordinary living-room as well;
+and a strange place it was. There were houses in it, finished and
+unfinished, for dolls of all stations in life. Tenement houses for dolls
+of moderate means; kitchens and single apartments for dolls of the lower
+classes; capital town residences for dolls of high estate. Some of these
+establishments were already furnished with a view to the needs of dolls
+of little money; others could be fitted on the most expensive scale, at
+a moment's notice, from whole shelves of chairs and tables, sofas,
+bedsteads, and upholstery. The nobility and gentry and public in
+general, for whose use these doll-houses were planned, lay, here and
+there, in baskets, staring straight up at the ceiling; but in showing
+their degrees in society, and keeping them in their own stations (which
+is found to be exceedingly difficult in real life), the makers of these
+dolls had far improved on nature, for they, not resting on such marks as
+satin, cotton-print, and bits of rag, had made differences which allowed
+of no mistake. Thus, the doll-lady of high rank had wax limbs of perfect
+shape; but only she and those of her grade; the next grade in the social
+scale being made of leather; and the next coarse linen stuff. As to the
+common-people, they had just so many matches out of tinder-boxes for
+their arms and legs, and there they were--established in their place at
+once, beyond the possibility of getting out of it.
+
+There were various other samples of his handicraft besides dolls in
+Caleb Plummer's room. There were Noah's Arks, in which the birds and
+beasts were an uncommonly tight fit, I assure you; though they could be
+crammed in, anyhow, at the roof, and rattled and shaken into the
+smallest compass. Most of these Noah's Arks had knockers on the doors;
+perhaps not exactly suitable to an Ark as suggestive of morning callers
+and a postman, yet a pleasant finish to the outside of the building.
+There were scores of melancholy little carts, which, when the wheels
+went round, performed most doleful music. Many small fiddles, drums, and
+other instruments of torture; no end of cannon, shields, swords, spears,
+and guns. There were little tumblers in red breeches, incessantly
+swarming up high obstacles of red-tape, and coming down, head first,
+upon the other side; and there were innumerable old gentlemen of
+respectable, even venerable, appearance, flying like crazy people over
+pegs, inserted, for the purpose, in their own street-doors. There were
+beasts of all sorts, horses, in particular, of every breed, from the
+spotted barrel on four pegs, with a small tippet for a mane, to the fine
+rocking horse on his highest mettle.
+
+"You were out in the rain last night in your beautiful new overcoat,"
+said Bertha.
+
+"Yes, in my beautiful new overcoat," answered Caleb, glancing to where a
+roughly-made garment of sackcloth was hung up to dry.
+
+"How glad I am you bought it, father."
+
+"And of such a tailor! quite a fashionable tailor; a bright blue cloth,
+with bright buttons; it's a deal too good a coat for me."
+
+"Too good!" cried the blind girl, stopping to laugh and clap her
+hands--"as if anything was too good for my handsome father, with his
+smiling face, and black hair, and his straight figure, as if _any_ thing
+could be too good for my handsome father!"
+
+"I'm half ashamed to wear it, though," said Caleb, watching the effect
+of what he said upon her brightening face; "upon my word. When I hear
+the boys and people say behind me: 'Halloa! Here's a swell!' I don't
+know which way to look. And when the beggar wouldn't go away last night;
+and, when I said I was a very common man, said 'No, your honor! Bless
+your honor, don't say that!' I was quite ashamed. I really felt as if I
+hadn't a right to wear it."
+
+Happy blind girl! How merry she was in her joy!
+
+"I see you, father," she said, clasping her hands, "as plainly as if I
+had the eyes I never want when you are with me. A blue coat!"----
+
+"Bright blue," said Caleb.
+
+"Yes, yes! Bright blue!" exclaimed the girl, turning up her radiant
+face; "the color I can just remember in the blessed sky! You told me it
+was blue before! A bright blue coat----"
+
+"Made loose to the figure," suggested Caleb.
+
+"Yes! loose to the figure!" cried the blind girl, laughing heartily;
+"and in it you, dear father, with your merry eye, your smiling face,
+your free step, and your dark hair; looking so young and handsome!"
+
+"Halloa! Halloa!" said Caleb. "I shall be vain presently."
+
+"I think you are already," cried the blind girl, pointing at him, in her
+glee. "I know you, father! Ha, ha, ha! I've found you out, you see!"
+
+How different the picture in her mind from Caleb, as he sat observing
+her! She had spoken of his free step. She was right in that. For years
+and years he never once had crossed that threshold at his own slow pace,
+but with a footfall made ready for her ear, and never had he, when his
+heart was heaviest, forgotten the light tread that was to render hers so
+cheerful and courageous.
+
+"There we are," said Caleb, falling back a pace or two to form the
+better judgment of his work; "as near the real thing as sixpen'orth of
+halfpence is to sixpence. What a pity that the whole front of the house
+opens at once! If there was only a staircase in it now, and regular
+doors to the rooms to go in at! but that's the worst of my calling. I'm
+always fooling myself, and cheating myself."
+
+"You are speaking quite softly. You are not tired, father?"
+
+"Tired," echoed Caleb, with a great burst in his manner, "what should
+tire me, Bertha? _I_ was never tired. What does it mean?"
+
+To give the greater force to his words, he stopped himself in an
+imitation of two small stretching and yawning figures on the
+mantel-shelf, who were shown as in one eternal state of weariness from
+the waist upwards; and hummed a bit of a song. It was a drinking song,
+something about a sparkling bowl; and he sang it with an air of a
+devil-may-care voice, that made his face a thousand times more meager
+and more thoughtful than ever.
+
+"What! you're singing, are you?" said Tackleton, the toy-seller for whom
+he worked, putting his head in at the door. "Go it! _I_ can't sing."
+
+Nobody would have thought that Tackleton _could_ sing. He hadn't what is
+generally termed a singing face, by any means.
+
+"I can't afford to sing," said Tackleton. "I'm glad you can. I hope you
+can afford to work, too. Hardly time for both, I should think?"
+
+"If you could only see him, Bertha, how he's winking at me!" whispered
+Caleb. "Such a man to joke! you'd think, if you didn't know him, he was
+in earnest, wouldn't you, now?"
+
+The blind girl smiled and nodded.
+
+"I am thanking you for the little tree, the beautiful little tree,"
+replied Bertha, bringing forward a tiny rose-tree in blossom, which, by
+an innocent story, Caleb had made her believe was her master's gift,
+though he himself had gone without a meal or two to buy it.
+
+"The bird that can sing and won't sing must be made to sing, they say,"
+grumbled Tackleton. "What about the owl that can't sing, and oughtn't to
+sing, and will sing; is there anything that he should be made to do?"
+
+"The extent to which he's winking at this moment!" whispered Caleb to
+his daughter. "Oh, my gracious!"
+
+"Always merry and light-hearted with us!" cried the smiling Bertha.
+
+"Oh! you're there, are you?" answered Tackleton. "Poor idiot!"
+
+He really did believe she was an idiot; and he founded the belief, I
+can't say whether consciously or not, upon her being fond of him.
+
+"Well! and being there--how are you?" said Tackleton, in his cross way.
+
+"Oh! well; quite well. And as happy as even you can wish me to be. As
+happy as you would make the whole world, if you could!"
+
+"Poor idiot!" muttered Tackleton. "No gleam of reason! Not a gleam!"
+
+The blind girl took his hand and kissed it; held it for a moment in her
+own two hands; and laid her cheek against it tenderly, before releasing
+it. There was such unspeakable affection and such fervent gratitude in
+the act, that Tackleton himself was moved to say, in a milder growl than
+usual:
+
+"What's the matter now?"
+
+"Bertha!" said Tackleton, assuming, for once, a little cordiality. "Come
+here."
+
+"Oh! I can come straight to you. You needn't guide me," she rejoined.
+
+"Shall I tell you a secret, Bertha?"
+
+"If you will!" she answered, eagerly.
+
+How bright the darkened face! How adorned with light the listening head!
+
+"This is the day on which little what's-her-name, the spoilt child,
+Peerybingle's wife, pays her regular visit to you--makes her ridiculous
+picnic here; ain't it?" said Tackleton, with a strong expression of
+distaste for the whole concern.
+
+"Yes," replied Bertha. "This is the day."
+
+"I thought so!" said Tackleton. "I should like to join the party."
+
+"Do you hear that, father!" cried the blind girl in delight.
+
+"Yes, yes, I hear it," murmured Caleb, with the fixed look of a
+sleep-walker "but I do not believe it. It's one of my lies, I've no
+doubt."
+
+"You see I--I want to bring the Peerybingles a little more into company
+with May Fielding," said Tackleton. "I am going to be married to May."
+
+"Married!" cried the blind girl, starting from him.
+
+"She's such a confounded idiot," muttered Tackleton, "that I was afraid
+she'd never understand me. Yes, Bertha! Married! Church, parson, clerk,
+glass-coach, bells, breakfast, bride-cake, favors, marrow-bones,
+cleavers, and all the rest of the tomfoolery. A wedding, you know; a
+wedding. Don't you know what a wedding is?"
+
+"I know," replied the blind girl, in a gentle tone. "I understand!"
+
+"Do you?" muttered Tackleton. "It's more than I expected. Well, on that
+account I want you to join the party, and to bring May and her mother.
+I'll send a little something or other, before the afternoon. A cold leg
+of mutton, or some comfortable trifle of that sort. You'll expect me?"
+
+"Yes," she answered.
+
+She had drooped her head, and turned away; and so stood, with her hands
+crossed, musing.
+
+"I don't think you will," muttered Tackleton, looking at her; "for you
+seem to have forgotten all about it already. Caleb!"
+
+"I may venture to say, I'm here, I suppose," thought Caleb. "Sir!"
+
+"Take care she don't forget what I've been saying to her."
+
+"_She_ never forgets," returned Caleb. "It's one of the few things she
+ain't clever in."
+
+"Every man thinks his own geese swans," observed the toy merchant, with
+a shrug. "Poor devil!"
+
+Having delivered himself of which remark with infinite contempt, old
+Gruff & Tackleton withdrew.
+
+Bertha remained where he had left her, lost in meditation. The gaiety
+had vanished from her downcast face, and it was very sad. Three or four
+times she shook her head, as if bewailing some remembrance or some loss;
+but her sorrowful reflections found no vent in words.
+
+"Father, I am lonely in the dark. I want my eyes; my patient, willing
+eyes."
+
+"Here they are," said Caleb. "Always ready. They are more yours than
+mine, Bertha, any hour in the four-and-twenty. What shall your eyes do
+for you, dear?"
+
+"Look round the room, father."
+
+"All right," said Caleb. "No sooner said than done, Bertha."
+
+"Tell me about it."
+
+"It's much the same as usual," said Caleb. "Homely, but very snug. The
+gay colors on the walls; the bright flowers on the plates and dishes;
+the shining wood, where there are beams or panels; the general
+cheerfulness and neatness of the building, make it very pretty."
+
+Cheerful and neat it was, wherever Bertha's hands could busy themselves.
+But nowhere else were cheerfulness and neatness possible, in the crazy
+shed which Caleb's fancy so transformed.
+
+"You have your working dress on, and are not so gay as when you wear the
+handsome coat?" said Bertha, touching him.
+
+"Not quite so gay," answered Caleb. "Pretty brisk though."
+
+"Father," said the blind girl, drawing close to his side and stealing
+one arm round his neck, "tell me something about May. She is very fair."
+
+"She is, indeed," said Caleb. And she was indeed. It was quite a rare
+thing to Caleb not to have to draw on his invention.
+
+"Her hair is dark," said Bertha, pensively, "darker than mine. Her voice
+is sweet and musical I know. I have often loved to hear it. Her shape--"
+
+"There's not a doll's in all the room to equal it," said Caleb. "And her
+eyes--"
+
+He stopped; for Bertha had drawn closer round his neck; and, from the
+arm that clung about him, came a warning pressure which he understood
+too well.
+
+He coughed a moment, hammered for a moment, and then fell back upon the
+song about the sparkling bowl; the song which helped him through all
+such difficulties.
+
+"Our friend, father; the one who has helped us so many times, Mr.
+Tackleton. I am never tired you know, of hearing about him. Now was I,
+ever?" she said, hastily.
+
+"Of course not," answered Caleb. "And with reason."
+
+"Ah! with how much reason?" cried the blind girl, with such fervency
+that Caleb, though his motives were pure, could not endure to meet her
+face, but dropped his eyes, as if she could have read in them his
+innocent deceit.
+
+"Then tell me again about him, dear father," said Bertha. "Many times
+again! His face is good, kind, and tender. Honest and true, I am sure it
+is. The manly heart that tries to cloak all favors with a show of
+roughness and unwillingness beats in its every look and glance."
+
+"And makes it noble," added Caleb in his quiet desperation.
+
+"And makes it noble!" cried the blind girl. "He is older than May,
+father?"
+
+"Ye-es," said Caleb, reluctantly. "He's a little older than May, but
+that don't signify."
+
+"Bertha," said Caleb softly, "what has happened? How changed you are, my
+darling, in a few hours--since this morning. _You_ silent and dull all
+day! What is it? Tell me!"
+
+"Oh father, father!" cried the blind girl, bursting into tears. "Oh, my
+hard, hard fate!"
+
+Caleb drew his hand across his eyes before he answered her.
+
+"But think how cheerful and how happy you have been, Bertha! How good,
+and how much loved, by many people."
+
+"That strikes me to the heart, dear father! Always so mindful of me!
+Always so kind to me!"
+
+Caleb was very much perplexed to understand her.
+
+"To be--to be blind, Bertha, my poor dear," he faltered, "is a great
+affliction; but----"
+
+"I have never felt it!" cried the blind girl. "I have never felt it in
+its fullness. Never! I have sometimes wished that I could see you, or
+could see him; only once, dear father; only for one little minute. But,
+father! Oh, my good, gentle father, bear with me, if I am wicked!" said
+the blind girl. "This is not the sorrow that so weighs me down!"
+
+"Bertha, my dear!" said Caleb, "I have something on my mind I want to
+tell you, while we are alone. Hear me kindly! I have a confession to
+make to you, my darling."
+
+"A confession, father?"
+
+"I have wandered from the truth and lost myself, my child," said Caleb,
+with a pitiable look on his bewildered face. "I have wandered from the
+truth, intending to be kind to you; and have been cruel."
+
+She turned her wonder-stricken face towards him, and repeated, "Cruel!
+He cruel to me!" cried Bertha, with a smile of incredulity.
+
+"Not meaning it, my child," said Caleb. "But I have been; though I never
+suspected it till yesterday. My dear blind daughter, hear me and forgive
+me! The world you live in, heart of mine, doesn't exist as I have
+represented it. The eyes you have trusted in have been false to you."
+
+She turned her wonder-stricken face towards him still.
+
+"Your road in life was rough, my poor one," said Caleb, "and I meant to
+smooth it for you. I have altered objects, invented many things that
+never have been, to make you happier. I have had concealments from you,
+put deceptions on you, God forgive me! and surrounded you with fancies."
+
+"But living people are not fancies?" she said hurriedly, and turning
+very pale, and still retiring from him. "You can't change them."
+
+"I have done so, Bertha," pleaded Caleb. "There is one person that you
+know, my Dove--"
+
+"Oh, father! why do you say I know?" she answered in a tone of keen
+reproach. "What and whom do I know! I, who have no leader! I, so
+miserably blind!"
+
+In the anguish of her heart she stretched out her hands, as if she were
+groping her way; then spread them, in a manner most forlorn and sad,
+upon her face.
+
+"The marriage that takes place to-day," said Caleb, "is with a stern,
+sordid, grinding man. A hard master to you and me, my dear, for many
+years. Ugly in his looks and in his nature. Cold and callous always.
+Unlike what I have painted him to you in everything, my child. In
+everything."
+
+"Oh, why," cried the blind girl, tortured, as it seemed, almost beyond
+endurance, "why did you ever do this? Why did you ever fill my heart so
+full, and then come in, like death, and tear away the objects of my
+love? Oh, heaven, how blind I am! How helpless and alone!"
+
+Her afflicted father hung his head, and offered no reply but in his
+grief.
+
+"Tell me what my home is. What it truly is."
+
+"It is a poor place, Bertha; very poor and bare indeed. The house will
+scarcely keep out wind and rain another winter. It is as roughly
+shielded from the weather, Bertha, as your poor father in his sackcloth
+coat."
+
+"Those presents that I took such care of, that came almost at my wish,
+and were so dearly welcome to me," she said, trembling; "where did they
+come from?"
+
+Caleb did not answer. She knew already, and was silent.
+
+"I see, I understand," said Bertha, "and now I am looking at you, at my
+kind, loving compassionate father, tell me what is he like?"
+
+"An old man, my child; thin, bent, gray-haired, worn-out with hard work
+and sorrow; a weak, foolish, deceitful old man."
+
+The blind girl threw herself on her knees before him, and took his gray
+head in her arms. "It is my sight, it is my sight restored," she cried.
+"I have been blind, but now I see; I have never till now truly seen my
+father. Does he think that there is a gay, handsome father in this earth
+that I could love so dearly, cherish so devotedly, as this worn and
+gray-headed old man? Father there is not a gray hair on your head that
+shall be forgotten in my prayers and thanks to heaven."
+
+"My Bertha!" sobbed Caleb, "and the brisk smart father in the blue
+coat--he's gone, my child."
+
+"Dearest father, no, he's not gone, nothing is gone, everything I loved
+and believed in is here in this worn, old father of mine, and more--oh,
+so much more, too! I have been happy and contented, but I shall be
+happier and more contented still, now that I know what you are. I am
+_not_ blind, father, any longer."
+
+
+
+
+VI.
+
+LITTLE NELL.
+
+
+THE house where little Nell and her grandfather lived was one of those
+places where old and curious things were kept, one of those old houses
+which seem to crouch in odd corners of the town, and to hide their musty
+treasures from the public eye in jealousy and distrust. There were suits
+of mail standing like ghosts in armor, here and there; curious carvings
+brought from monkish cloisters; rusty weapons of various kinds;
+distorted figures in china, and wood, and iron, and ivory; tapestry, and
+strange furniture that might have been designed in dreams; and in the
+old, dark, dismal rooms there lived alone together the man and a
+child--his grandchild, Little Nell. Solitary and dull as was her life,
+the innocent and cheerful spirit of the child found happiness in all
+things, and through the dim rooms of the old curiosity shop Little Nell
+went singing, moving with gay and lightsome step.
+
+[Illustration: Little Nell and Her Grandfather.
+
+                                       Page 86]
+
+But gradually over the old man, whom she so tenderly loved, there stole
+a sad change. He became thoughtful, sad and wretched. He had no sleep
+or rest but that which he took by day in his easy-chair; for every
+night, and all night long, he was away from home. To the child it seemed
+that her grandfather's love for her increased, even with the hidden
+grief by which she saw him struck down. And to see him sorrowful, and
+not to know the cause of his sorrow; to see him growing pale and weak
+under his trouble of mind, so weighed upon her gentle spirit that at
+times she felt as though her heart must break.
+
+At last the time came when the old man's feeble frame could bear up no
+longer against his hidden care. A raging fever seized him, and, as he
+lay delirious or insensible through many weeks, Nell learned that the
+house which sheltered them was theirs no longer; that in the future they
+would be very poor; that they would scarcely have bread to eat. At
+length the old man began to mend, but his mind was weakened.
+
+He would sit for hours together, with Nell's small hand in his, playing
+with the fingers, and sometimes stopping to smooth her hair or kiss her
+brow; and when he saw that tears were glistening in her eyes he would
+look amazed. As the time drew near when they must leave the house, he
+made no reference to the necessity of finding other shelter. An
+indistinct idea he had that the child was desolate and in need of help;
+though he seemed unable to understand their real position more
+distinctly. But a change came upon him one evening, as he and Nell sat
+silently together.
+
+"Let us speak softly, Nell," he said. "Hush! for if they knew our
+purpose they would say that I was mad, and take thee from me. We will
+not stop here another day. We will travel afoot through the fields and
+woods, and trust ourselves to God in the places where He dwells.
+To-morrow morning, dear, we'll turn our faces from this scene of sorrow,
+and be as free and happy as the birds."
+
+The child's heart beat high with hope and confidence. She had no thought
+of hunger, or cold, or thirst, or suffering. To her it seemed that they
+might beg their way from door to door in happiness, so that they were
+together.
+
+When the day began to glimmer they stole out of the house, and, passing
+into the street, stood still.
+
+"Which way?" asked the child.
+
+The old man looked doubtfully and helplessly at her, and shook his head.
+It was plain that she was thenceforth his guide and leader. The child
+felt it, but had no doubts or misgivings, and, putting her hand in his,
+led him gently away. Forth from the city, while it yet was asleep went
+the two poor wanderers, going, they knew not whither.
+
+They passed through the long, deserted streets, in the glad light of
+early morning, until these streets dwindled away, and the open country
+was about them. They walked all day, and slept that night at a small
+cottage where beds were let to travelers. The sun was setting on the
+second day of their journey, and they were jaded and worn out with
+walking, when, following a path which led through a churchyard to the
+town where they were to spend the night, they fell in with two traveling
+showmen, the exhibitors or keepers of a Punch and Judy show. These two
+men raised their eyes when the old man and his young companion were
+close upon them. One of them, the real exhibitor, no doubt, was a
+little, merry-faced man with a twinkling eye and a red nose, who seemed
+to be something like old Punch himself. The other--that was he who took
+the money--had rather a careful and cautious look, which perhaps came
+from his business also.
+
+The merry man was the first to greet the strangers with a nod; and
+following the old man's eyes, he observed that perhaps that was the
+first time he had ever seen a Punch off the stage.
+
+"Why do you come here to do this?" said the old man sitting down beside
+them, and looking at the figures with extreme delight.
+
+"Why, you see," rejoined the little man, "we're putting up for to-night
+at the public house yonder, and it wouldn't do to let 'em see the
+present company undergoing repair."
+
+"No!" cried the old man, making signs to Nell to listen, "why not, eh?
+why not?"
+
+"Because it would destroy all the reality of the show and take away all
+the interest, wouldn't it?" replied the little man. "Would you care a
+ha'penny for the Lord Chancellor if you know'd him in private and
+without his wig?--certainly not."[C]
+
+"Good!" said the old man, venturing to touch one of the puppets, and
+drawing away his hand with a shrill laugh. "Are you going to show 'em
+to-night? are you?"
+
+"That is the purpose, governor," replied the other, "and unless I'm much
+mistaken, Tommy Codlin is a-calculating at this minute what we've lost
+through your coming upon us. Cheer up, Tommy, it can't be much."
+
+The little man accompanied these latter words with a wink, expressive
+of the estimate he had formed of the travelers' pocketbook.
+
+To this Mr. Codlin, who had a surly, grumbling manner, replied, as he
+twitched Punch off the tombstone and flung him into the box:
+
+"I don't care if we haven't lost a farden, but you're too free. If you
+stood in front of the curtain and see the public's faces as I do, you'd
+know human natur' better."
+
+Turning over the figures in the box like one who knew and despised them,
+Mr. Codlin drew one forth and held it up for the inspection of his
+friend:
+
+"Look here; here's all this Judy's clothes falling to pieces again. You
+haven't got a needle and thread, I suppose?"
+
+The little man shook his head and scratched it sadly, as he contemplated
+this condition of a principal performer in his show. Seeing that they
+were at a loss, the child said, timidly:
+
+"I have a needle, sir, in my basket, and thread too. Will you let me try
+to mend it for you? I think I could do it neater than you could."
+
+Even Mr. Codlin had nothing to urge against a proposal so seasonable.
+Nell, kneeling down beside the box, was soon busily engaged in her task,
+and finished it in a wonderful way.
+
+While she was thus at work, the merry little man looked at her with an
+interest which did not appear to be any less when he glanced at her
+helpless companion. When she had finished her work he thanked her, and
+asked to what place they were traveling.
+
+"N--no farther to-night, I think," said the child, looking toward her
+grandfather.
+
+"If you're wanting a place to stop at," the man remarked. "I should
+advise you to take up at the same house with us. That's it. The long
+low, white house there. It's very cheap."
+
+They went to the little inn, and when they had been refreshed, the whole
+house hurried away into an empty stable where the show stood, and where,
+by the light of a few flaring candles stuck round a hoop which hung by a
+line from the ceiling, it was to be forthwith shown.
+
+And now Mr. Thomas Codlin, after blowing away at the Pan's pipes, took
+his station on one side of the curtain which concealed the mover of the
+figures, and, putting his hands in his pockets, prepared to reply to all
+questions and remarks of Punch, and to make a pretence of being his most
+intimate private friend, of believing in him to the fullest and most
+unlimited extent, of knowing that Mr. Punch enjoyed day and night a
+merry and glorious life in that temple, and that he was at all times
+and under every circumstance the same wise and joyful person that all
+present then beheld him.
+
+The whole performance was applauded until the old stable rang, and gifts
+were showered in with a liberality which testified yet more strongly to
+the general delight. Among the laughter none was more loud and frequent
+than the old man's. Nell's was unheard, for she, poor child, with her
+head drooping on his shoulder, had fallen asleep, and slept too soundly
+to be roused by any of his efforts to awaken her to a part in his glee.
+
+The supper was very good, but she was too tired to eat, and yet would
+not leave the old man until she had kissed him in his bed. He, happily
+insensible to every care and anxiety, sat listening with a vacant smile
+and admiring face to all that his new friends said; and it was not until
+they retired yawning to their room that he followed the child up-stairs.
+
+She had a little money, but it was very little; and when that was gone
+they must begin to beg. There was one piece of gold among it, and a need
+might come when its worth to them would be increased a hundred times. It
+would be best to hide this coin, and never show it unless their case was
+entirely desperate, and nothing else was left them.
+
+Her resolution taken, she sewed the piece of gold into her dress, and
+going to bed with a lighter heart sunk into a deep slumber.
+
+"And where are you going to-day?" said the little man the following
+morning, addressing himself to Nell.
+
+"Indeed I hardly know--we have not made up our minds yet," replied the
+child.
+
+"We're going on to the races," said the little man. "If that's your way
+and you like to have us for company, let us travel together. If you
+prefer going alone, only say the word and you'll find that we sha'n't
+trouble you."
+
+"We'll go with you," said the old man. "Nell--with them, with them."
+
+The child thought for a moment, and knowing that she must shortly beg,
+and could scarcely hope to do so at a better place than where crowds of
+rich ladies and gentlemen were met together for enjoyment, determined to
+go with these men so far. She therefore thanked the little man for his
+offer, and said, glancing timidly toward his friend, that they would if
+there was no objection to their staying with them as far as the
+race-town.
+
+And with these men they traveled forward on the following day.
+
+They made two long days' journey with their new companions, passing
+through villages and towns, and meeting upon one occasion with two young
+people walking upon stilts, who were also going to the races.
+
+And now they had come to the time when they must beg their bread. Soon
+after sunrise the second morning, she stole out, and, rambling into some
+fields at a short distance, plucked a few wild roses and such humble
+flowers, purposing to make them into little nosegays and offer them to
+the ladies in the carriages when the company arrived. Her thoughts were
+not idle while she was thus busy; when she returned and was seated
+beside the old man, tying her flowers together, while the two men lay
+dozing in the corner, she plucked him by the sleeve, and, slightly
+glancing toward them, said in a low voice:
+
+"Grandfather, don't look at those I talk of, and don't seem as if I
+spoke of anything but what I am about. What was that you told me before
+we left the old house? That if they knew what we were going to do, they
+would say that you were mad, and part us?"
+
+The old man turned to her with a look of wild terror; but she checked
+him by a look, and bidding him hold some flowers while she tied them up,
+and so bringing her lips closer to his ear, said:
+
+"I know that was what you told me. You needn't speak, dear. I recollect
+it very well. It was not likely that I should forget it. Grandfather, I
+have heard these men say they think that we have secretly left our
+friends, and mean to carry us before some gentleman and have us taken
+care of and sent back. If you let your hand tremble so, we can never get
+away from them, but if you're only quiet now, we shall do so easily."
+
+"How?" muttered the old man. "Dear Nell, how? They will shut me up in a
+stone-room, dark and cold, and chain me up to the wall, Nell--flog me
+with whips, and never let me see thee more!"
+
+"You're trembling again," said the child. "Keep close to me all day.
+Never mind them, don't look at them, but me. I shall find a time when we
+can steal away. When I do, mind you come with me, and do not stop or
+speak a word. Hush! That's all."
+
+"Halloo! what are you up to, my dear?" said Mr. Codlin, raising his
+head, and yawning.
+
+"Making some nosegays," the child replied; "I am going to try to sell
+some, these three days of the races. Will you have one--as a present, I
+mean?"
+
+Mr. Codlin would have risen to receive it, but the child hurried toward
+him and placed it in his hand, and he stuck it in his button-hole.
+
+As the morning wore on, the tents at the race-course assumed a gayer and
+more brilliant appearance, and long lines of carriages came rolling
+softly on the turf. Black-eyed gipsy girls, their heads covered with
+showy handkerchiefs, came out to tell fortunes, and pale, slender women
+with wasted faces followed the footsteps of conjurers, and counted the
+sixpences with anxious eyes long before they were gained. As many of the
+children as could be kept within bounds were stowed away, with all the
+other signs of dirt and poverty, among the donkeys, carts, and horses;
+and as many as could not be thus disposed of ran in and out in all
+directions, crept between people's legs and carriage wheels, and came
+forth unharmed from under horses' hoofs. The dancing-dogs, the stilts,
+the little lady and the tall man, and all the other attractions, with
+organs out of number and bands innumerable, came out from the holes and
+corners in which they had passed the night, and flourished boldly in the
+sun.
+
+Along the uncleared course, Short led his party, sounding the brazen
+trumpet and speaking in the voice of Punch; and at his heels went Thomas
+Codlin, bearing the show as usual, and keeping his eye on Nell and her
+grandfather, as they rather lingered in the rear. The child bore upon
+her arm the little basket with her flowers, and sometimes stopped, with
+timid and modest looks, to offer them at some gay carriage; but alas!
+there were many bolder beggars there, gipsies who promised husbands, and
+others skillful in their trade; and although some ladies smiled gently
+as they shook their heads, and others cried to the gentlemen beside
+them, "See what a pretty face!" they let the pretty face pass on, and
+never thought that it looked tired or hungry.
+
+There was but one lady who seemed to understand the child, and she was
+one who sat alone in a handsome carriage, while two young men in dashing
+clothes, who had just stepped out from it, talked and laughed loudly at
+a little distance, appearing to forget her, quite. There were many
+ladies all around, but they turned their backs, or looked another way,
+or at the two young men (not unfavorably at _them_), and left her to
+herself. The lady motioned away a gipsy woman, eager to tell her
+fortune, saying that it was told already and had been for some years,
+but called the child toward her, and, taking her flowers, put money into
+her trembling hand, and bade her go home and keep at home.
+
+Many a time they went up and down those long, long lines, seeing
+everything but the horses and the race; when the bell rung to clear the
+course, going back to rest among the carts and donkeys, and not coming
+out again until the heat was over. Many a time, too, was Punch displayed
+in the full glory of his humor; but all this while the eye of Thomas
+Codlin was upon them, and to escape without notice was almost
+impossible.
+
+At length, late in the day, Mr. Codlin pitched the show in a spot right
+in the middle of the crowd, and the Punch and Judy were surrounded by
+people who were watching the performance.
+
+Short was moving the images, and knocking them in the fury of the combat
+against the sides of the show, the people were looking on with laughing
+faces, and Mr. Codlin's face showed a grim smile as his roving eye
+detected the hands of thieves in the crowd going into waistcoat pockets.
+If Nell and her grandfather were ever to get away unseen, that was the
+very moment. They seized it, and fled.
+
+They made a path through booths and carriages and throngs of people, and
+never once stopped to look behind. The bell was ringing, and the course
+was cleared by the time they reached the ropes, but they dashed across
+it, paying no attention to the shouts and screeching that assailed them
+for breaking in it, and, creeping under the brow of the hill at a quick
+pace, made for the open fields. At last they were free from Codlin and
+Short.
+
+That night they reached a little village in a woody hollow. The village
+schoolmaster, a good and gentle man, pitying their weariness, and
+attracted by the child's sweetness and modesty, gave them a lodging for
+the night; nor would he let them leave him until two days more had
+passed.
+
+They journeyed on, when the time came that they must wander forth again,
+by pleasant country lanes; and as they passed, watching the birds that
+perched and twittered in the branches overhead, or listening to the
+songs that broke the happy silence, their hearts were peaceful and free
+from care. But by-and-by they came to a long winding road which
+lengthened out far into the distance, and though they still kept on, it
+was at a much slower pace, for they were now very weary.
+
+The afternoon had worn away into a beautiful evening, when they arrived
+at a point where the road made a sharp turn and struck across a common.
+On the border of this common, and close to the hedge which divided it
+from the cultivated fields, a caravan was drawn up to rest; upon which
+they came so suddenly that they could not have avoided it if they would.
+Do you know what a "caravan" is? It is a sort of gipsy house on wheels
+in which people live, while the house moves from place to place.
+
+It was not a shabby, dingy, dusty cart, but a smart little house with
+white dimity curtains hung over the windows, and window-shutters of
+green picked out with panels of a staring red, in which
+happily-contrasted colors the whole house shone brilliant. Neither was
+it a poor caravan drawn by a single donkey or feeble old horse, for a
+pair of horses in pretty good condition were released from the shafts
+and grazing on the frouzy grass. Neither was it a gipsy caravan, for at
+the open door (graced with a bright brass knocker) sat a Christian lady,
+stout and comfortable to look upon, who wore a large bonnet trembling
+with bows. And that it was not a caravan of poor people was clear from
+what this lady was doing; for she was taking her tea. The tea-things,
+including a bottle of rather suspicious looks and a cold knuckle of ham,
+were set forth upon a drum, covered with a white napkin; and there, as
+if at the most convenient round-table in all the world, sat this roving
+lady, taking her tea and enjoying the prospect.
+
+It happened at that moment that the lady of the caravan had her cup
+(which, that everything about her might be of a stout and comfortable
+kind, was a breakfast cup) to her lips, and that having her eyes lifted
+to the sky in her enjoyment of the full flavor of her tea, it happened
+that, being thus agreeably engaged, she did not see the travelers when
+they first came up. It was not until she was in the act of setting down
+the cup, and drawing a long breath after the exertion of swallowing its
+contents, that the lady of the caravan beheld an old man and a young
+child walking slowly by, and glancing at her proceedings with eyes of
+modest, but hungry admiration.
+
+"Hey!" cried the lady of the caravan, scooping the crumbs out of her lap
+and swallowing the same before wiping her lips. "Yes, to be
+sure------Who won the Helter-Skelter Plate, child?"
+
+"Won what, ma'am?" asked Nell.
+
+"The Helter-Skelter Plate at the races, child--the plate that was run
+for on the second day."
+
+"On the second day, ma'am?"
+
+"Second day! Yes, second day," repeated the lady, with an air of
+impatience. "Can't you say who won the Helter-Skelter Plate when you're
+asked the question civilly?"
+
+"I don't know, ma'am."
+
+"Don't know!" repeated the lady of the caravan; "why, you were there. I
+saw you with my own eyes."
+
+Nell was not a little alarmed to hear this, supposing that the lady
+might be intimately acquainted with the firm of Short and Codlin; but
+what followed tended to put her at her ease.
+
+"And very sorry I was," said the lady of the caravan, "to see you in
+company with a Punch--a low, common, vulgar wretch, that people should
+scorn to look at."
+
+"I was not there by choice," returned the child; "we didn't know our
+way, and the two men were very kind to us, and let us travel with them.
+Do you--do you know them, ma'am?"
+
+"Know 'em, child?" cried the lady of the caravan, in a sort of shriek.
+"Know _them_! But you're young and ignorant, and that's your excuse for
+asking sich a question. Do I look as if I know'd 'em? does the caravan
+look as if _it_ know'd 'em?"
+
+"No, ma'am, no," said the child, fearing she had committed some grievous
+fault. "I beg your pardon."
+
+The lady of the caravan was in the act of gathering her tea things
+together preparing to clear the table, but noting the child's anxious
+manner, she hesitated and stopped. The child courtesied, and, giving her
+hand to the old man, had already got some fifty yards or so away, when
+the lady of the caravan called to her to return.
+
+"Come nearer, nearer still," said she, beckoning to her to ascend the
+steps. "Are you hungry, child?"
+
+"Not very, but we are tired, and it's--it _is_ a long way------"
+
+"Well, hungry or not, you had better have some tea," rejoined her new
+acquaintance. "I suppose you are agreeable to that old gentleman?"
+
+The grandfather humbly pulled off his hat and thanked her. The lady of
+the caravan then bade him come up the steps likewise, but the drum
+proving an inconvenient table for two, they went down again, and sat
+upon the grass, where she handed down to them the tea-tray, the bread
+and butter, and the knuckle of ham.
+
+"Set 'em out near the hind wheels child, that's the best place," said
+their friend, superintending the arrangement from above. "Now hand up
+the tea-pot for a little more hot water and a pinch of fresh tea, and
+then both of you eat and drink as much as you can, and don't spare
+anything; that's all I ask of you."
+
+The mistress of the caravan, saying the girl and her grandfather could
+not be very heavy, invited them to go along with them for a while, for
+which Nell thanked her with all her heart.
+
+When they had traveled slowly forward for some short distance, Nell
+ventured to steal a look round the caravan and observe it more closely.
+One-half of it--that part in which the comfortable proprietress was then
+seated--was carpeted, and so divided the farther end as to form a
+sleeping-place, made after the fashion of a berth on board ship, which
+was shaded, like the little windows, with fair white curtains, and
+looked comfortable enough, though by what kind of gymnastic exercise the
+lady of the caravan ever contrived to get into it was a mystery. The
+other half served for a kitchen, and was fitted up with a stove whose
+small chimney passed through the roof.
+
+The mistress sat looking at the child for a long time in silence, and
+then, getting up, brought out from a corner a large roll of canvas about
+a yard in width, which she laid upon the floor and spread open with her
+foot until it nearly reached from one end of the caravan to the other.
+
+"There, child," she said, "read that."
+
+Nell walked down it, and read aloud, in enormous black letters, the
+inscription, "JARLEY'S WAX-WORK."
+
+"Read it again," said the lady, complacently.
+
+"Jarley's Wax-work," repeated Nell.
+
+"That's me," said the lady. "I am Mrs. Jarley."
+
+Giving the child an encouraging look, the lady of the caravan unfolded
+another scroll, whereon was the inscription, "One hundred figures the
+full size of life;" and then another scroll, on which was written, "The
+only stupendous collection of real wax-work in the world;" and then
+several smaller scrolls, with such inscriptions as "Now exhibiting
+within"--"The genuine and only Jarley"--"Jarley's unrivaled
+collection"--"Jarley is the delight of the Nobility and Gentry"--"The
+Royal Family are the patrons of Jarley." When she had exhibited these
+large painted signs to the astonished child, she brought forth specimens
+of the lesser notices in the shape of hand-bills, some of which were
+printed in the form of verses on popular times, as "Believe me if all
+Jarley's wax-work so rare"--"I saw thy show in youthful prime"--"Over
+the water to Jarley;" while, to satisfy all tastes, others were composed
+with a view to the lighter and merrier spirits, as a verse on the
+favorite air of "If I had a donkey," beginning
+
+          If I know'd a donkey wot wouldn't go
+          To see Mrs. Jarley's wax-work show,
+          Do you think I'd own him?
+          Oh no, no!
+                  Then run to Jarley's------
+
+besides several compositions in prose, pretending to be dialogues
+between the Emperor of China and an oyster.
+
+"I never saw any wax-work, ma'am," said Nell. "Is it funnier than
+Punch?"
+
+"Funnier!" said Mrs. Jarley in a shrill voice. "It is not funny at all."
+
+"Oh!" said Nell, with all possible humility.
+
+"It isn't funny at all," repeated Mrs. Jarley. "It's calm and--what's
+that word again--critical?--no--classical, that's it--it's calm and
+classical. No low beatings and knockings about, no jokings and
+squeakings like your precious Punches, but always the same, with a
+constantly unchanging air of coldness and dignity; and so like life
+that, if wax-work only spoke and walked about you'd hardly know the
+difference. I won't go so far as to say that, as it is, I've seen
+wax-work quite like life, but I've certainly seen some life that was
+exactly like wax-work."
+
+This conference at length concluded, she beckoned Nell to sit down.
+
+"And the old gentleman, too," said Mrs. Jarley; "for I want to have a
+word with him. Do you want a good place for your granddaughter, master?
+If you do, I can put her in the way of getting one. What do you say?"
+
+"I can't leave her," answered the old man. "We can't separate. What
+would become of me without her?"
+
+"If you're really ready to employ yourself," said Mrs. Jarley, "there
+would be plenty for you to do in the way of helping to dust the figures,
+and take the checks, and so forth. What I want your granddaughter for is
+to point 'em out to the company; they would be soon learned and she has
+a way with her that people wouldn't think unpleasant, though she _does_
+come after me; for I've been always accustomed to go round with visitors
+myself, which I should keep on doing now, only that my spirits make a
+little rest absolutely necessary. It's not a common offer, bear in
+mind," said the lady, rising into the tone and manner in which she was
+accustomed to address her audiences; "it's Jarley's wax-work, remember.
+The duty's very light and genteel, the company particularly select, the
+exhibition takes place in assembly-rooms, town-halls, large rooms at
+inns, or auction galleries. There is none of your open-air wondering at
+Jarley's, recollect; there is no tarpaulin and sawdust at Jarley's,
+remember. Every promise made in the hand-bills is kept to the utmost,
+and the whole forms an effect of splendor hitherto unknown in this
+kingdom. Remember that the price of admission is only sixpence, and that
+this is an opportunity which may never occur again!"
+
+"We are very much obliged to you, ma'am," said Nell, "and thankfully
+accept your offer."
+
+"And you'll never be sorry for it," returned Mrs. Jarley. "I'm pretty
+sure of that. So as that's all settled, let us have a bit of supper."
+
+Rumbling along with most unwonted noise, the caravan stopped at last at
+the place of exhibition, where Nell came down from the wagon among an
+admiring group of children, who evidently supposed her to be an
+important part of the curiosities, and were almost ready to believe that
+her grandfather was a cunning device in wax. The chests were taken out
+of the van for the figures with all haste, and taken in to be unlocked
+by Mrs. Jarley, who, attended by George and the driver, arranged their
+contents (consisting of red festoons and other ornamental work) to make
+the best show in the decoration of the room.
+
+When the festoons were all put up as tastily as they might be, the
+wonderful collection was uncovered; and there were shown, on a raised
+platform some two feet from the floor, running round the room and parted
+from the rude public by a crimson rope, breast high, a large number of
+sprightly waxen images of famous people, singly and in groups, clad in
+glittering dresses of various climes and times, and standing more or
+less unsteadily upon their legs, with their eyes very wide open, and
+their nostrils very much inflated, and the muscles of their legs, and
+arms very strongly developed, and all their faces expressing great
+surprise. All the gentlemen were very narrow in the breast, and very
+blue about the beards; and all the ladies were wonderful figures; and
+all the ladies and all the gentlemen were looking intensely nowhere, and
+staring with tremendous earnestness at nothing.
+
+When Nell had shown her first wonder at this glorious sight, Mrs. Jarley
+ordered the room to be cleared of all but herself and the child, and,
+sitting herself down in an arm-chair in the center, presented Nell with
+a willow wand, long used by herself for pointing out the characters,
+and was at great pains to instruct her in her duty.
+
+"That," said Mrs. Jarley, in her exhibition tone, as Nell touched a
+figure at the beginning of the platform, "is an unfortunate maid of
+honor in the time of Queen Elizabeth, who died from pricking her finger
+in consequence of working upon a Sunday. Observe the blood which is
+trickling from her finger; also the gold-eyed needle of the period, with
+which she is at work."
+
+All this Nell repeated twice or thrice--pointing to the finger and the
+needle at the right times; and then passed on to the next.
+
+"That, ladies and gentlemen," said Mrs. Jarley, "is Jasper Packlemerton,
+of terrible memory, who courted and married fourteen wives, and
+destroyed them all, by tickling the soles of their feet when they were
+sleeping in the consciousness of innocence and virtue. On being brought
+to the scaffold and asked if he was sorry for what he had done, he
+replied yes, he was sorry for having let 'em off so easy, and hoped all
+Christian husbands would pardon him the offense. Let this be a warning
+to all young ladies to be particular in the character of the gentlemen
+of their choice. Observe that his fingers are curled as if in the act of
+tickling, and that his face is represented with a wink, as he appeared
+when committing his barbarous murders."
+
+When Nell knew all about Mr. Packlemerton, and could say it without
+faltering, Mrs. Jarley passed on to the fat man, and then to the thin
+man, the tall man, the short man, the old lady who died of dancing at a
+hundred and thirty-two, the wild boy of the woods, the woman who
+poisoned fourteen families with pickled walnuts, and other historical
+characters and interesting but misguided individuals. And so well did
+Nell profit by her instructions, and so apt was she to remember them,
+that by the time they had been shut up together for a couple of hours,
+she was in full possession of the history of the whole establishment,
+and perfectly able to tell the stories of the wax-work to visitors.
+
+For some time her life and the life of the poor vacant old man passed
+quietly and happily. They traveled from place to place with Mrs. Jarley;
+Nell spoke her piece, with the wand in her hand, before the waxen
+images; and her grandfather in a dull way dusted the images when he was
+told to do so.
+
+But heavier sorrow was yet to come. One night, a holiday night for them,
+Neil and her grandfather went out to walk. A terrible thunderstorm
+coming on, they were forced to take refuge in a small public house; and
+here they saw some shabbily dressed and wicked looking men were playing
+cards. The old man watched them with increasing interest and excitement,
+until his whole appearance underwent a complete change. His face was
+flushed and eager, his teeth set. With a hand that trembled violently he
+seized Nell's little purse, and in spite of her pleadings joined in the
+game, gambling with such a savage thirst for gain that the distressed
+and frightened child could almost better have borne to see him dead. It
+was long after midnight when the play came to an end; and they were
+forced to remain where they were until the morning. And in the night the
+child was wakened from her troubled sleep to find a figure in the
+room--a figure busying its hands about her garments, while its face was
+turned to her, listening and looking lest she should awake. It was her
+grandfather himself, his white face pinched and sharpened by the
+greediness which made his eyes unnaturally bright, counting the money of
+which his hands were robbing her.
+
+Evening after evening, after that night, the old man would steal away,
+not to return until the night was far spent, demanding, wildly, money.
+And at last there came an hour when the child overheard him, tempted
+beyond his feeble powers of resistance, undertake to find more money to
+feed the desperate passion which had laid its hold upon his weakness by
+robbing the kind Mrs. Jarley, who had done so much for them. The poor
+old man had become so weak in his mind, that he did not understand how
+wicked was his act.
+
+That night the child took her grandfather by the hand and led him forth.
+Through the strait streets and narrow outskirts of the town their
+trembling feet passed quickly; the child sustained by one idea--that
+they were flying from wickedness and disgrace, and that she could save
+her grandfather only by her firmness unaided by one word of advice or
+any helping hand; the old man following her as though she had been an
+angel messenger sent to lead him where she would.
+
+The hardest part of all their wanderings was now before them. They slept
+in the open air that night, and on the following morning some men
+offered to take them a long distance on their barge on the river. These
+men, though they were not unkindly, were very rugged, noisy fellows, and
+they drank and quarreled fearfully among themselves, to Nell's
+inexpressible terror. It rained, too, heavily, and she was wet and
+cold. At last they reached the great city whither the barge was bound,
+and here they wandered up and down, being now penniless, and watched the
+faces of those who passed, to find among them a ray of encouragement or
+hope. Ill in body, and sick to death at heart, the child needed her
+utmost courage and will even to creep along.
+
+They lay down that night, and the next night too, with nothing between
+them and the sky; a penny loaf was all they had had that day, and when
+the third morning came, it found the child much weaker, yet she made no
+complaint. The great city with its many factories hemmed them in on
+every side, and seemed to shut out hope.
+
+Faint and spiritless as they were, its streets were terrible to them.
+After humbly asking for relief at some few doors, and being driven away,
+they agreed to make their way out of it as speedily as they could, and
+try if the people living in some lone house beyond would have more pity
+on their worn out state.
+
+They were dragging themselves along through the last street, and the
+child felt that the time was close at hand when her enfeebled powers
+would bear no more. There appeared before them, at this moment, going in
+the same direction as themselves, a traveler on foot, who, with a
+bundle of clothing strapped to his back, leaned upon a stout stick as he
+walked, and read from a book which he held in his other hand.
+
+It was not an easy matter to come up with him and ask his aid, for he
+walked fast, and was a little distance in advance. At length he stopped,
+to look more attentively at some passage in his book. Encouraged by a
+ray of hope, the child shot on before her grandfather, and, going close
+to the stranger without rousing him by the sound of her footsteps,
+began, in a few faint words, to beg his help.
+
+He turned his head. The child clapped her hands together, uttered a wild
+shriek, and fell senseless at his feet.
+
+It was the poor schoolmaster. No other than the poor schoolmaster.
+Scarcely less moved and surprised by the sight of the child than she had
+been on recognizing him, he stood, for a moment, silent, without even
+the presence of mind to raise her from the ground.
+
+But, quickly recovering himself, he threw down his stick and book, and,
+dropping on one knee beside her, tried simple means as came to his mind,
+to restore her to herself; while her grandfather, standing idly by,
+wrung his hands, and begged her, with many words of love, to speak to
+him, were it only a whisper.
+
+"She appears to be quite worn out," said the schoolmaster, glancing
+upward into his face. "You have used up all her strength, friend."
+
+"She is dying of want," answered the old man. "I never thought how weak
+and ill she was till now."
+
+Casting a look upon him, half-angry and half-pitiful, the schoolmaster
+took the child in his arms, and, bidding the old man gather up her
+little basket and follow him directly, bore her away at his utmost
+speed.
+
+There was a small inn within sight, to which, it would seem, he had been
+walking when so unexpectedly overtaken. Toward this place he hurried
+with his unconscious burden, and rushing into the kitchen, and calling
+upon the company there assembled to make way for God's sake, laid it
+down on a chair before the fire.
+
+The company, who rose in confusion on the schoolmaster's entrance, did
+as people usually do under such circumstances. Everybody called for his
+or her favorite remedy, which nobody brought; each cried for more air,
+at the same time carefully shutting out what air there was, by closing
+round the object of sympathy; and all wondered why somebody else didn't
+do what it never appeared to occur to them might be done by themselves.
+
+The landlady, however, who had more readiness and activity than any of
+them, and who seemed to understand the case more quickly, soon came
+running in, with a little hot medicine, followed by her servant-girl,
+carrying vinegar, hartshorn, smelling-salts, and such other
+restoratives; which, being duly given, helped the child so far as to
+enable her to thank them in a faint voice, and to hold out her hand to
+the poor schoolmaster, who stood, with an anxious face, near her side.
+Without suffering her to speak another word, or so much as to stir a
+finger any more, the women straightway carried her off to bed; and,
+having covered her up warm, bathed her cold feet, and wrapped them in
+flannel, they sent a messenger for the doctor.
+
+The doctor, who was a red-nosed gentleman with a great bunch of seals
+dangling below a waistcoat of ribbed black satin, arrived with all
+speed, and taking his seat by the bedside of poor Nell, drew out his
+watch, and felt her pulse. Then he looked at her tongue, then he felt
+her pulse again, and while he did so, he eyed the half-emptied
+wine-glass as if in profound abstraction.
+
+"I should give her," said the doctor at length, "a teaspoonful, every
+now and then, of hot medicine."
+
+"Why, that's exactly what we've done, sir!" said the delighted landlady.
+
+"I should also," observed the doctor, who had passed the foot-bath on
+the stairs, "I should also," said the doctor, in a very wise tone of
+voice, "put her feet in hot water and wrap them up in flannel. I should
+likewise," said the doctor, with increased solemnity, "give her
+something light for supper--the wing of a roasted chicken now------"
+
+"Why, goodness gracious me, sir, it's cooking at the kitchen fire this
+instant!" cried the landlady. And so indeed it was, for the schoolmaster
+had ordered it to be put down, and it was getting on so well that the
+doctor might have smelled it if he had tried; perhaps he did.
+
+"You may then," said the doctor, rising gravely, "give her a glass of
+hot mulled port-wine, if she likes wine------"
+
+"And a piece of toast, sir?" suggested the landlady.
+
+"Ay," said the doctor, in a very dignified tone, "And a toast--of bread.
+But be very particular to make it of bread, if you please, ma'am."
+
+With which parting advice, slowly and solemnly given, the doctor
+departed, leaving the whole house in admiration of that wisdom which
+agreed so closely with their own. Everybody said he was a very shrewd
+doctor indeed, and knew perfectly what people's bodies needed; which
+there appears some reason to suppose he did.
+
+While her supper was preparing, the child fell into a refreshing sleep,
+from which they were obliged to rouse her when it was ready. As she
+showed extraordinary uneasiness on learning that her grandfather was
+below stairs, and as she was greatly troubled at the thought of their
+being apart, he took his supper with her. Finding her still very anxious
+for the old man, they made him up a bed in an inner room, to which he
+soon went. The key of this room happened by good-fortune to be on that
+side of the door which was in Nell's room; she turned it on him when the
+landlady had withdrawn, and crept to bed again with a thankful heart.
+
+The schoolmaster sat for a long time smoking his pipe by the kitchen
+fire, which was now deserted, thinking, with a very happy face, on the
+fortunate chance which had brought him at just the right moment to the
+child's assistance.
+
+The schoolmaster, as it appeared, was on his way to a new home. And
+when the child had recovered somewhat from her hunger and weariness, it
+was arranged that she and her grandfather should go with him to the
+village whither he was bound, and that he should endeavor to find them
+some work by which they could get their living.
+
+It was a lonely little village, lying among the quiet country scenes
+Nell loved. And here, her grandfather being peaceful and at rest, a
+great calm fell upon the spirit of the child. Often she would steal into
+the church, and, sitting down among the quiet figures carved upon the
+tombs, would think of the summer days and the bright spring-time that
+would come; of the rays of sun that would fall in, aslant those sleeping
+forms; of the songs of birds, and the sweet air that would steal in.
+What if the spot awakened thoughts of death! It would be no pain to
+sleep amid such sights and sounds as these. For the time was drawing
+nearer every day when Nell was to rest indeed. She never murmured or
+complained, but faded like a light upon a summer's evening and died. Day
+after day and all day long, the old man, broken-hearted and with no love
+or care for anything in life, would sit beside her grave with her straw
+hat and the little basket she had been used to carry, waiting till she
+should come to him again. At last they found him lying dead upon the
+stone. And in the church where they had often prayed and mused and
+lingered, hand in hand, the child and the old man slept together.
+
+FOOTNOTE:
+
+[C] The Lord Chancellor, it may be explained, is the highest judge in
+the courts of England; and when in court always wears a great wig and a
+robe.
+
+
+
+
+VII.
+
+LITTLE DAVID COPPERFIELD.
+
+
+I, little David Copperfield, lived with my mother in a pretty house in
+the village of Blunderstone in Suffolk. I had never known my father, who
+died before I could remember anything, and I had neither brothers nor
+sisters. I was fondly loved by my pretty young mother, and our kind,
+good servant, Peggotty, and was a very happy little fellow. We had very
+few friends, and the only relation my mother talked about was an aunt of
+my father's, a tall and rather terrible old lady, from all accounts, who
+had once been to see us when I was quite a tiny baby, and had been so
+angry to find I was not a little girl that she had left the house quite
+offended, and had never been heard of since. One visitor, a tall dark
+gentleman, I did not like at all, and was rather inclined to be jealous
+that my mother should be so friendly with the stranger.
+
+Peggotty and I were sitting one night by the parlor fire, alone. I had
+been reading to Peggotty about crocodiles. I was tired of reading, and
+dead sleepy; but having leave, as a high treat, to sit up until my
+mother came home from spending the evening at a neighbor's, I would
+rather have died upon my post (of course) than have gone to bed. I had
+reached that stage of sleepiness when Peggotty seemed to swell and grow
+immensely large. I propped my eyelids open with my two forefingers, and
+looked perseveringly at her as she sat at work; at the little house with
+a thatched roof, where she kept her yard-measure; at her work-box with a
+sliding-lid, with a view of St. Paul's Cathedral (with a pink dome)
+painted on the top; at the brass thimble on her finger; at herself, whom
+I thought lovely. I felt so sleepy that I knew if I lost sight of
+anything, for a moment, I was gone.
+
+"Peggotty," says I, suddenly, "were you ever married?"
+
+"Lord, Master Davy!" replied Peggotty. "What's put marriage in your
+head?"
+
+She answered with such a start that it quite awoke me. And then she
+stopped in her work and looked at me, with her needle drawn out to its
+thread's length.
+
+"But _were_ you ever married, Peggotty?" says I. "You are a very
+handsome woman, ain't you?"
+
+"Me handsome, Davy!" said Peggotty. "Lawk, no, my dear! But what put
+marriage in your head?"
+
+"I don't know! You mustn't marry more than one person at a time, may
+you, Peggotty?"
+
+"Certainly not," says Peggotty, with the promptest decision.
+
+"But if you marry a person, and the person dies, why then you may marry
+another person, mayn't you, Peggotty?"
+
+"You MAY," says Peggotty, "if you choose, my dear. That's a matter of
+opinion."
+
+"But what is your opinion, Peggotty?" said I.
+
+I asked her and looked curiously at her, because she looked so curiously
+at me.
+
+"My opinion is," said Peggotty, taking her eyes from me, after waiting a
+little, and going on with her work, "that I never was married myself,
+Master Davy, and that I don't expect to be. That's all I know about the
+subject."
+
+"You ain't cross, I suppose, Peggotty, are you?" said I, after sitting
+quiet for a minute.
+
+I really thought she was, she had been so short with me; but I was quite
+mistaken; for she laid aside her work (which was a stocking of her own)
+and opening her arms wide, took my curly head within them, and gave it a
+good squeeze. I know it was a good squeeze, because, being very plump,
+whenever she made any little exertion after she was dressed, some of the
+buttons on the back of her flew off. And I recollect two bursting to the
+opposite side of the parlor while she was hugging me.
+
+One day Peggotty asked me if I would like to go with her on a visit to
+her brother at Yarmouth.
+
+"Is your brother an agreeable man, Peggotty?" I inquired.
+
+"Oh, what an agreeable man he is!" cried Peggotty. "Then there's the
+sea, and the boats and ships, and the fishermen, and the beach. And 'Am
+to play with."
+
+Ham was her nephew. I was quite anxious to go when I heard of all these
+delights; but my mother, what would she do all alone? Peggotty told me
+my mother was going to pay a visit to some friends, and would be sure to
+let me go. So all was arranged, and we were to start the next day in the
+carrier's cart. I was so eager that I wanted to put my hat and coat on
+the night before! But when the time came to say good-by to my dear
+mamma, I cried a little, for I had never left her before. It was rather
+a slow way of traveling, and I was very tired and sleepy when I arrived
+at Yarmouth, and found Ham waiting to meet me. He was a great strong
+fellow, six feet high, and took me on his back and the box under his
+arm to carry both to the house. I was delighted to find that this house
+was made of a real big black boat, with a door and windows cut in the
+side, and an iron funnel sticking out of the roof for a chimney. Inside,
+it was very cozy and clean, and I had a tiny bedroom in the stern. I was
+very much pleased to find a dear little girl, about my own age, to play
+with, and after tea I said:
+
+"Mr. Peggotty."
+
+"Sir," says he.
+
+"Did you give your son the name of Ham because you lived in a sort of
+ark?"
+
+Mr. Peggotty seemed to think it a deep idea, but answered:
+
+"No, sir. I never giv' him no name."
+
+"Who gave him that name, then?" said I, putting question number two of
+the catechism to Mr. Peggotty.
+
+"Why, sir, his father giv' it him," said Mr. Peggotty.
+
+"I thought you were his father!"
+
+"My brother Joe was _his_ father," said Mr. Peggotty.
+
+"Dead, Mr. Peggotty?" I hinted, after a respectful pause.
+
+"Drowndead," said Mr. Peggotty.
+
+I was very much surprised that Mr. Peggotty was not Ham's father, and
+began to wonder whether I was mistaken about his relationship to anybody
+else there. I was so curious to know that I made up my mind to have it
+out with Mr. Peggotty.
+
+"Little Em'ly," I said, glancing at her. "She is your daughter, isn't
+she, Mr. Peggotty?"
+
+"No, sir. My brother-in-law, Tom, was _her_ father."
+
+I couldn't help it. "----Dead, Mr. Peggotty?" I hinted, after another
+respectful silence.
+
+"Drowndead," said Mr. Peggotty.
+
+I felt the difficulty of resuming the subject, but had not got to the
+bottom of it yet, and must get to the bottom somehow. So I said:
+
+"Haven't you _any_ children, Mr. Peggotty?"
+
+"No, master," he answered, with a short laugh. "I'm a bacheldore."
+
+"A bachelor!" I said, astonished. "Why, who's that, Mr. Peggotty?"
+Pointing to the person in the apron who was knitting.
+
+"That's Missis Gummidge," said Mr. Peggotty.
+
+"Gummidge, Mr. Peggotty?"
+
+But at this point Peggotty--I mean my own Peggotty--made such impressive
+motions to me not to ask any more questions, that I could only sit and
+look at all the company, until it was time to go to bed.
+
+Mrs. Gummidge lived with them too, and did the cooking and cleaning, for
+she was a poor widow and had no home of her own. I thought Mr. Peggotty
+was very good to take all these people to live with him, and I was quite
+right, for Mr. Peggotty was only a poor man himself and had to work hard
+to get a living.
+
+Almost as soon as morning shone upon the oyster-shell frame of my mirror
+I was out of bed, and out with tittle Em'ly, picking up stones upon the
+beach.
+
+"You're quite a sailor I suppose?" I said to Em'ly. I don't know that I
+supposed anything of the kind, but I felt it proper to say something;
+and a shining sail close to us made such a pretty little image of
+itself, at the moment, in her bright eye, that it came into my head to
+say this.
+
+"No," replied Em'ly, shaking her head, "I'm afraid of the sea."
+
+"Afraid!" I said, with a becoming air of boldness, and looking very big
+at the mighty ocean. "I ain't."
+
+"Ah! but it's cruel," said Em'ly. "I have seen it very cruel to some of
+our men. I have seen it tear a boat as big as our house all to pieces."
+
+"I hope it wasn't the boat that--"
+
+"That father was drowned in?" said Em'ly. "No. Not that one, I never see
+that boat."
+
+"Nor him?" I asked her.
+
+Little Em'ly shook her head. "Not to remember!"
+
+Here was something remarkable. I immediately went into an explanation
+how I had never seen my own father; and how my mother and I had always
+lived by ourselves in the happiest state imaginable, and lived so then,
+and always meant to live so; and how my father's grave was in the
+churchyard near our house, and shaded by a tree, beneath the boughs of
+which I had walked and heard the birds sing many a pleasant morning. But
+there were some differences between Em'ly's orphanhood and mine, it
+appeared. She had lost her mother before her father, and where her
+father's grave was no one knew, except that it was somewhere in the
+depths of the sea.
+
+"Besides," said Em'ly, as she looked about for shells and pebbles, "your
+father was a gentleman and your mother is a lady; and my father was a
+fisherman and my mother was a fisherman's daughter, and my Uncle Dan is
+a fisherman."
+
+"Dan is Mr. Peggotty, is he?" said I.
+
+[Illustration: David Copperfield and Little Em'ly.
+
+                                       Page 131]
+
+"Uncle--yonder," answered Em'ly, nodding at the boat-house.
+
+"Yes. I mean him. He must be very good, I should think."
+
+"Good?" said Em'ly. "If I was ever to be a lady, I'd give him a sky-blue
+coat with diamond buttons, nankeen trousers, a red velvet waistcoat, a
+cocked hat, a large gold watch, a silver pipe, and a box of money."
+
+I said I had no doubt that Mr. Peggotty well deserved these treasures.
+
+Little Em'ly had stopped and looked up at the sky while she named these
+articles, as if they were a glorious vision. We went on again picking up
+shells and pebbles.
+
+"You would like to be a lady?" I said.
+
+Em'ly looked at me, and laughed and nodded "yes."
+
+"I should like it very much. We would all be gentlefolks together, then.
+Me, and uncle, and Ham, and Mrs. Gummidge. We wouldn't mind then, when
+there come stormy weather. Not for our own sakes, I mean. We would for
+the poor fishermen's, to be sure, and we'd help 'em with money when they
+come to any hurt."
+
+I was quite sorry to leave these kind people and my dear little
+companion, but I was glad to think I should get back to my own dear
+mamma. When I reached home, however, I found a great change. My mother
+was married to the dark man I did not like, whose name was Mr.
+Murdstone, and he was a stern, hard man, who had no love for me, and did
+not allow my mother to pet and indulge me as she had done before. Mr.
+Murdstone's sister came to live with us, and as she was even more
+difficult to please than her brother, and disliked boys, my life was no
+longer a happy one. I tried to be good and obedient, for I knew it made
+my mother very unhappy to see me punished and found fault with. I had
+always had lessons with my mother, and as she was patient and gentle, I
+had enjoyed learning to read, but now I had a great many very hard
+lessons to do, and was so frightened and shy when Mr. and Miss Murdstone
+were in the room, that I did not get on at all well, and was continually
+in disgrace.
+
+Let me remember how it used to be, and bring one morning back again.
+
+I come into the second-best parlor after breakfast, with my books, and
+an exercise-book and a slate. My mother is ready for me at her
+writing-desk, but not half so ready as Mr. Murdstone in his easy-chair
+by the window (though he pretends to be reading a book), or as Miss
+Murdstone, sitting near my mother stringing steel beads. The very sight
+of these two has such an influence over me that I begin to feel the
+words I have been at infinite pains to get into my head all sliding
+away, and going I don't know where. I wonder where they _do_ go,
+by-the-by?
+
+I hand the first book to my mother. Perhaps it is a grammar, perhaps a
+history, or geography. I take a last drowning look at the page as I give
+it into her hand, and start off aloud at a racing pace while I have got
+it fresh. I trip over a word. Mr. Murdstone looks up. I trip over
+another word. Miss Murdstone looks up. I redden, tumble over half a
+dozen words and stop. I think my mother would show me the book if she
+dared, but she does not dare, and she says softly:
+
+"Oh, Davy, Davy!"
+
+"Now, Clara," says Mr. Murdstone, "be firm with the boy. Don't say, 'Oh,
+Davy, Davy!' That's childish. He knows his lesson, or he does not know
+it."
+
+"He does _not_ know it," Miss Murdstone interposes awfully.
+
+"I am really afraid he does not," says my mother.
+
+"Then you see, Clara," returns Miss Murdstone, "you should just give
+him the book back, and make him know it."
+
+"Yes, certainly," says my mother; "that is what I intend to do, my dear
+Jane. Now, Davy, try once more, and don't be stupid."
+
+I obey the first clause of my mother's words by trying once more, but am
+not so successful with the second, for I am very stupid. I tumble down
+before I get to the old place, at a point where I was all right before,
+and stop to think. But I can't think about the lesson. I think of the
+number of yards of net in Miss Murdstone's cap, or of the price of Mr.
+Murdstone's dressing-gown, or any such ridiculous matter that I have no
+business with, and don't want to have anything at all to do with. Mr.
+Murdstone makes a movement of impatience which I have been expecting for
+a long time. Miss Murdstone does the same. My mother glances
+submissively at them, shuts the book, and lays it by, to be worked out
+when my other tasks are done.
+
+There is a pile of these tasks very soon, and it swells like a rolling
+snowball. The bigger it gets, the more stupid _I_ get. The case is so
+hopeless, and I feel that I am wallowing in such a bog of nonsense, that
+I give up all idea of getting out, and abandon myself to my fate. The
+despairing way in which my mother and I look at each other, as I
+blunder on, is truly melancholy. But the greatest effect in these
+miserable lessons is when my mother (thinking nobody is observing her)
+tries to give me the cue by the motion of her lips. At that instant,
+Miss Murdstone, who has been lying in wait for nothing else all along
+says in a deep warning voice:
+
+"Clara!"
+
+My mother starts, colors, and smiles faintly. Mr. Murdstone comes out of
+his chair, takes the book, throws it at me, or boxes my ears with it,
+and turns me out of the room by the shoulders.
+
+My only pleasure was to go up into a little room at the top of the house
+where I had found a number of books that had belonged to my own father,
+and I would sit and read Robinson Crusoe, and many tales of travels and
+adventures, and I imagined myself to be sometimes one and sometimes
+another hero, and went about for days with the centre-piece out of an
+old set of boot-trees, pretending to be a captain in the British Royal
+Navy.
+
+One morning when I went into the parlor with my books, I found my mother
+looking anxious, Miss Murdstone looking firm, and Mr. Murdstone binding
+something round the bottom of a cane--a lithe and limber cane, which he
+left off binding when I came in, and poised and switched in the air.
+
+"I tell you, Clara," said Mr. Murdstone, "I have often been flogged
+myself."
+
+"To be sure; of course," said Miss Murdstone.
+
+"Certainly, my dear Jane," faltered my mother, meekly. "But--but do you
+think it did Edward good?"
+
+"Do you think it did Edward harm, Clara?" asked Mr. Murdstone, gravely.
+
+"That's the point!" said his sister.
+
+To this my mother returned, "Certainly, my dear Jane," and said no more.
+
+I felt afraid that all this had something to do with myself, and sought
+Mr. Murdstone's eye as it lighted on mine.
+
+"Now, David," he said--and I saw that cast again, as he said it--"you
+must be far more careful to-day than usual." He gave the cane another
+poise and another switch; and having finished his preparation of it,
+laid it down beside him, with an expressive look, and took up his book.
+
+This was a good freshener to my memory, as a beginning. I felt the words
+of my lessons slipping off, not one by one, or line by line, but by the
+entire page. I tried to lay hold of them; but they seemed, if I may so
+express it, to have put skates on, and to skim away from me with a
+smoothness there was no checking.
+
+We began badly, and went on worse. I had come in with an idea of doing
+better than usual, thinking that I was very well prepared; but it turned
+out to be quite a mistake. Book after book was added to the heap of
+failures, Miss Murdstone being firmly watchful of us all the time. And
+when we came at last to a question about five thousand cheeses (canes he
+made it that day, I remember), my mother burst out crying.
+
+"Clara!" said Miss Murdstone, in her warning voice.
+
+"I am not quite well, my dear Jane, I think," said my mother.
+
+I saw him wink, solemnly, at his sister, as he rose and said, taking up
+the cane:
+
+"Why, Jane, we can hardly expect Clara to bear, with perfect firmness,
+the worry and torment that David has caused her to-day. Clara is greatly
+strengthened and improved; but we can hardly expect so much from her.
+David, you and I will go up-stairs, boy."
+
+As he took me out at the door, my mother ran towards us. Miss Murdstone
+said, "Clara! are you a perfect fool?" and interfered. I saw my mother
+stop her ears then, and I heard her crying.
+
+He walked me up to my room slowly and gravely--I am certain he had a
+delight in that formal show of doing justice--and when we got there,
+suddenly twisted my head under his arm.
+
+"Mr. Murdstone! Sir!" I cried to him. "Don't! Pray don't beat me! I have
+tried to learn, sir, but I can't learn while you and Miss Murdstone are
+by. I can't indeed!"
+
+"Can't you, indeed, David?" he said. "We'll try that."
+
+He had my head as in a vise, but I twined round him somehow, and stopped
+him for a moment, entreating him not to beat me. It was only for a
+moment that I stopped him, for he cut me heavily an instant afterwards,
+and in the same instant I caught the hand with which he held me in my
+mouth, between my teeth, and bit it through. It sets my teeth on edge to
+think of it.
+
+He beat me then, as if he would have beaten me to death. Above all the
+noise we made, I heard them running up the stairs, and crying out--I
+heard my mother crying out--and Peggotty. Then he was gone; and the door
+was locked outside; and I was lying, fevered, and hot, and torn, and
+raging in my puny way, upon the floor.
+
+How well I recollect, when I became quiet, what an unnatural stillness
+seemed to reign through the whole house! How well I remember, when my
+smart and passion began to cool, how wicked I began to feel!
+
+I sat listening for a long while, but there was not a sound. I crawled
+up from the floor, and saw my face in the glass, so swollen, red, and
+ugly that it almost frightened me. My stripes were sore and stiff, and
+made me cry afresh, when I moved; but they were nothing to the guilt I
+felt. It lay heavier on my breast than if I had been a most terrible
+criminal, I dare say, and the longer I thought of it the greater the
+offense seemed.
+
+It had begun to grow dark, and I had shut the window (I had been lying,
+for the most part, with my head upon the sill, by turns crying, dozing,
+and looking listlessly out), when the key was turned, and Miss Murdstone
+came in with some bread and meat and milk. These she put down upon the
+table without a word, glaring at me the while and then retired, locking
+the door after her.
+
+I never shall forget the waking next morning; the being cheerful and
+fresh for the first moment, and then the being weighed down by the stale
+and dismal oppression of remembrance. Miss Murdstone came again before
+I was out of bed; told me, in so many words, that I was free to walk in
+the garden for half an hour and no longer; retired, leaving the door
+open, that I might avail myself of that permission.
+
+I did so, and did so every morning of my imprisonment, which lasted five
+days. If I could have seen my mother alone, I should have gone down on
+my knees to her and besought her forgiveness; but I saw no one, Miss
+Murdstone excepted, during the whole time.
+
+The length of those five days I can convey no idea of to anyone. They
+occupy the place of years in my remembrance.
+
+On the last night of my restraint, I was awakened by hearing my own name
+spoken in a whisper. I started up in bed, and, putting out my arms in
+the dark, said:
+
+"Is that you, Peggotty?"
+
+There was no immediate answer, but presently I heard my name again, in a
+tone so very mysterious and awful, that I think I should have gone into
+a fit, if it had not occurred to me that it must have come through the
+keyhole.
+
+I groped my way to the door, and, putting my own lips to the keyhole,
+whispered:
+
+"Is that you, Peggotty, dear?"
+
+"Yes, my own precious Davy," she replied. "Be as soft as a mouse, or the
+cat'll hear us."
+
+I understood this to mean Miss Murdstone, and knew that we must be
+careful and quiet; her room being close by.
+
+"How's mamma, dear Peggotty? Is she very angry with me?"
+
+I could hear Peggotty crying softly on her side of the keyhole, as I was
+doing on mine, before she answered. "No. Not very."
+
+"What is going to be done with me, Peggotty, dear? Do you know?"
+
+"School. Near London," was Peggotty's answer. I was obliged to get her
+to repeat it, for she spoke it the first time quite down my throat in
+consequence of my having forgotten to take my mouth away from the
+keyhole and put my ear there; and, though her words tickled me a good
+deal, I didn't hear them.
+
+"When, Peggotty?"
+
+"To-morrow."
+
+"Is that the reason why Miss Murdstone took the clothes out of my
+drawers?" which she had done, though I have forgotten to mention it.
+
+"Yes," said Peggotty. "Box."
+
+"Shan't I see mamma?"
+
+"Yes," said Peggotty. "Morning."
+
+Then Peggotty fitted her mouth close to the keyhole, and spoke these
+words through it with as much feeling and earnestness as a keyhole has
+ever been the means of communicating, I will venture to say, shooting in
+each broken little sentence in a convulsive little burst of its own.
+
+"Davy, dear. If I ain't been azackly as intimate with you. Lately, as I
+used to be. It ain't because I don't love you. Just as well and more, my
+pretty poppet. It's because I thought it better for you. And for someone
+else besides. Davy, my darling, are you listening? Can you hear?"
+
+"Ye--ye--ye--yes, Peggotty!" I sobbed.
+
+"My own!" said Peggotty, with infinite compassion. "What I want to say,
+is. That you must never forget me. For I'll never forget you. And I'll
+take as much care of your mamma, Davy. As I ever took of you. And I
+won't leave her. The day may come when she'll be glad to lay her poor
+head. On her stupid, cross old Peggotty's arm again. And I'll write to
+you, my dear. Though I ain't no scholar. And I'll--I'll--" Peggotty fell
+to kissing the keyhole, as she couldn't kiss me.
+
+"Thank you, dear Peggotty!" said I. "Oh, thank you! Thank you! Will you
+promise me one thing, Peggotty? Will you write and tell Mr. Peggotty
+and little Em'ly and Mrs. Gummidge and Ham that I am not so bad as they
+might suppose, and that I sent 'em all my love--especially to little
+Em'ly? Will you, if you please, Peggotty?"
+
+The kind soul promised, and we both of us kissed the keyhole with the
+greatest affection--I patted it with my hand, I recollect, as if it had
+been her honest face--and parted.
+
+In the morning Miss Murdstone appeared as usual, and told me I was going
+to school; which was not altogether such news to me as she supposed. She
+also informed me that when I was dressed, I was to come down-stairs into
+the parlor and have my breakfast. There I found my mother, very pale and
+with red eyes; into whose arms I ran, and begged her pardon from my
+suffering soul.
+
+"Oh, Davy!" she said. "That you could hurt anyone I love! Try to be
+better, pray to be better! I forgive you; but I am so grieved, Davy,
+that you should have such bad passions in your heart."
+
+Miss Murdstone was good enough to take me out to the cart, and to say on
+the way that she hoped I would repent, before I came to a bad end; and
+then I got into the cart, and the lazy horse walked off with it.
+
+We might have gone about half a mile, and my pocket handkerchief was
+quite wet through, when the carrier stopped short.
+
+Looking out to ascertain for what, I saw, to my amazement, Peggotty
+burst from a hedge and climb into the cart. She took me in both her arms
+and squeezed me until the pressure on my nose was extremely painful,
+though I never thought of that till afterwards, when I found it very
+tender. Not a single word did Peggotty speak, releasing one of her arms,
+she put it down in her pocket to the elbow, and brought out some
+paper-bags of cakes, which she crammed into my pockets, and a purse
+which she put into my hand, but not one word did she say. After another
+and a final squeeze with both arms, she got down from the cart and ran
+away; and my belief is, and has always been, without a solitary button
+on her gown. I picked up one, of several that was rolling about, and
+treasured it as a keepsake for a long time.
+
+The carrier looked at me, as if to inquire if she were coming back. I
+shook my head, and said I thought not. "Then come up!" said the carrier
+to the lazy horse, who came up accordingly.
+
+Having by this time cried as much as I possibly could, I began to think
+it was of no use crying any more. The carrier seeing me in this
+resolution, proposed that my pocket handkerchief should be spread upon
+the horse's back to dry. I thanked him and agreed; and particularly
+small it looked under those circumstances.
+
+I had now time to examine the purse. It was a stiff leather purse, with
+a snap, and had three bright shillings in it, which Peggotty had
+evidently polished up with whitening, for my greater delight. But its
+precious contents were two half-crowns folded together in a bit of
+paper, on which was written, in my mother's hand, "For Davy. With my
+love." I was so overcome by this, that I asked the carrier to be so good
+as reach me my pocket handkerchief again, but he said he thought I had
+better do without it; and I thought I really had; so I wiped my eyes on
+my sleeve and stopped myself.
+
+For good, too; though, in consequence of my previous feelings, I was
+still occasionally seized with a stormy sob. After we had jogged on for
+some little time, I asked the carrier if he was going all the way.
+
+"All the way where?" inquired the carrier.
+
+"There," I said.
+
+"Where's there?" inquired the carrier.
+
+"Near London," I said.
+
+"Why, that horse," said the carrier, jerking the rein to point him out,
+"would be deader than pork afore he got over half the ground."
+
+"Are you only going to Yarmouth then?" I asked.
+
+"That's about it," said the carrier. "And there I shall take you to the
+stage-cutch, and the stage-cutch that'll take you to--wherever it is."
+
+I shared my cakes with the carrier, who asked if Peggotty made them, and
+told him yes, she did all our cooking. The carrier looked thoughtful,
+and then asked if I would send a message to Peggotty from him. I agreed,
+and the message was "Barkis is willing." While I was waiting for the
+coach at Yarmouth, I wrote to Peggotty:
+
+"MY DEAR PEGGOTTY:--I have come here safe. Barkis is willing. My love to
+mamma. Yours affectionately.
+
+"_P.S._--He says he particularly wanted you to know _Barkis is
+willing_."
+
+At Yarmouth I found dinner was ordered for me, and felt very shy at
+having a table all to myself, and very much alarmed when the waiter told
+me he had seen a gentleman fall down dead after drinking some of their
+beer. I said I would have some water, and was quite grateful to the
+waiter for drinking the ale that had been ordered for me, for fear the
+people of the hotel should be offended. He also helped me to eat my
+dinner, and accepted one of my bright shillings.
+
+After a long, tiring journey by the coach, for there were no trains in
+those days, I arrived in London and was taken to the school at
+Blackheath, by one of the masters, Mr. Mell.
+
+I gazed upon the schoolroom into which he took me, as the most forlorn
+and desolate place I had ever seen. I see it now. A long room, with
+three long rows of desks, and six of long seats, bristling all round
+with pegs for hats and slates. Scraps of old copy-books and exercises
+litter the dirty floor.
+
+Mr. Mell having left me for a few moments, I went softly to the upper
+end of the room, observing all this as I crept along. Suddenly I came
+upon a pasteboard placard, beautifully written which was lying on the
+desk, and bore these words--"_Take care of him._ _He bites._"
+
+I got upon the desk immediately, afraid of at least a great dog
+underneath. But, though I looked all round with anxious eyes, I could
+see nothing of him. I was still engaged in peering about when Mr. Mell
+came back, and asked me what I did up there.
+
+"I beg your pardon, sir," says I, "if you please, I'm looking for the
+dog."
+
+"Dog?" says he. "What dog?"
+
+"Isn't it a dog, sir?"
+
+"Isn't what a dog?"
+
+"That's to be taken care of, sir; that bites."
+
+"No, Copperfield," says he, gravely, "that's not a dog. That's a boy. My
+instructions are, Copperfield, to put this placard on your back. I am
+sorry to make such a beginning with you, but I must do it."
+
+With that, he took me down, and tied the placard, which was neatly
+constructed for the purpose, on my shoulders like a knapsack; and
+wherever I went, afterwards, I had the consolation of carrying it.
+
+What I suffered from that placard, nobody can imagine. Whether it was
+possible for people to see me or not, I always fancied that somebody was
+reading it. It was no relief to turn round and find nobody; for wherever
+my back was, there I imagined somebody always to be.
+
+There was an old door in this playground, on which the boys had a custom
+of carving their names. It was completely covered with such
+inscriptions. In my dread of the end of the vacation and their coming
+back, I could not read one boy's name, without inquiring in what tone
+and with what emphasis _he_ would read, "Take care of him. He bites."
+There was one boy--a certain J. Steerforth--who cut his name very deep
+and very often, who, I conceived, would read it in a rather strong
+voice, and afterwards pull my hair. There was another boy, one Tommy
+Traddles, who I dreaded would make game of it, and pretend to be
+dreadfully frightened of me. There was a third, George Demple, who I
+fancied would sing it. I have looked, a little shrinking creature, at
+that door, until the owners of all the names--there were five-and-forty
+of them in the school then, Mr. Mell said--seemed to cry out, each in
+his own way, "Take care of him. He bites!"
+
+Tommy Traddles was the first boy who returned. He introduced himself by
+informing me that I should find his name on the right-hand corner of the
+gate, over the top bolt; upon that I said, "Traddles?" to which he
+replied, "The same," and then he asked me for a full account of myself
+and family.
+
+It was fortunate for me that Traddles came back first. He enjoyed my
+placard so much that he saved me from the embarrassment of either
+telling about it or trying to hide it by presenting me to every other
+boy who came back, great or small, immediately on his arrival, in this
+form of introduction, "Look here! Here's a game!" Happily, too, the
+greater part of the boys came back low-spirited, and were not so
+boisterous at my expense as I had expected. Some of them certainly could
+not resist the temptation of pretending that I was a dog, and patting
+and smoothing me lest I should bite, and saying, "Lie down, sir!" and
+calling me Towzer. This was naturally confusing, among so many
+strangers, and cost some tears, but on the whole it was much better than
+I had anticipated.
+
+I was not considered as being formally received into the school,
+however, until J. Steerforth arrived. Before this boy, who was reputed
+to be a great scholar, and was very good-looking, and at least
+half-a-dozen years older than I, I was carried as before a judge. He
+inquired, under a shed in the playground, into the particulars of my
+punishment, and was pleased to express his opinion that it was a "jolly
+shame;" for which I became bound to him ever afterwards.
+
+"What money have you got, Copperfield?" he said, walking aside with me
+when he had disposed of my affair in these terms.
+
+I told him seven shillings.
+
+"You had better give it to me to take care of," he said. "At least, you
+can, if you like. You needn't if you don't like."
+
+I hastened to comply with his friendly suggestion, and, opening
+Peggotty's purse, turned it upside down into his hand.
+
+"Do you want to spend anything now?" he asked me.
+
+"No, thank you," I replied.
+
+"You can, if you like, you know," said Steerforth. "Say the word."
+
+"No, thank you, sir," I repeated.
+
+"Perhaps you'd like to spend a couple of shillings or so in a bottle of
+currant wine by-and-by, up in the bedroom?" said Steerforth. "You belong
+to my bedroom, I find."
+
+It certainly had not occurred to me before, but I said, Yes, I should
+like that.
+
+"Very good," said Steerforth. "You'll be glad to spend another shilling
+or so in almond cakes, I dare say?"
+
+I said, "Yes, I should like that, too."
+
+"And another shilling or so in biscuits, and another in fruit, eh?" said
+Steerforth. "I say, young Copperfield, you're going it!"
+
+I smiled because he smiled, but I was a little troubled in my mind, too.
+
+"Well!" said Steerforth. "We must make it stretch as far as we can;
+that's all. I'll do the best in my power for you. I can go out when I
+like, and I'll smuggle the prog in." With these words he put the money
+in his pocket, and kindly told me not to make myself uneasy; he would
+take care it should be all right.
+
+He was as good as his word, if that were all right which I had a secret
+misgiving was nearly all wrong--for I feared it was a waste of my
+mother's two half-crowns--though I had preserved the piece of paper they
+were wrapped in; which was a precious saving. When we went up-stairs to
+bed, he produced the whole seven shillings worth, and laid it out on my
+bed in the moonlight, saying:
+
+"There you are, young Copperfield, and a royal spread you've got!"
+
+I couldn't think of doing the honors of the feast at my time of life,
+while he was by; my hand shook at the very thought of it. I begged him
+to do me the favor of taking charge of the treat; and my request being
+seconded by the other boys who were in that room, he agreed to it, and
+sat upon my pillow, handing round the food--with perfect fairness, I
+must say--and giving out the currant wine in a little glass without a
+foot, which was his own property. As to me, I sat on his left hand, and
+the rest were grouped about us, on the nearest beds and on the floor.
+
+How well I recollect our sitting there, talking in whispers; or their
+talking, and my respectfully listening, I ought rather to say; the
+moonlight falling a little way into the room, through the window,
+painting a pale window on the floor, and the greater part of us in
+shadow, except when Steerforth scratched a match, when he wanted to look
+for anything on the board, and shed a blue glare over us that was gone
+directly! A certain mysterious feeling, consequent on the darkness, the
+secrecy of the revel, and the whisper in which everything was said,
+steals over me again, and I listen to all they tell me, with a vague
+feeling of solemnity and awe, which makes me glad they are all so near,
+and frightens me (though I feign to laugh) when Traddles pretends to see
+a ghost in the corner.
+
+I heard all kinds of things about the school and all belonging to it. I
+heard that Mr. Creakle was the sternest and most severe of masters; that
+he laid about him, right and left, every day of his life, charging in
+among the boys like a trooper, and slashing away, unmercifully.
+
+I heard that the man with the wooden leg, whose name was Tungay, was an
+obstinate fellow who had formerly been in the hop business, but had
+come into the line with Mr. Creakle, in consequence, as was supposed
+among the boys, of his having broken his leg in Mr. Creakle's service,
+and having done a deal of dishonest work for him, and knowing his
+secrets.
+
+But the greatest wonder that I heard of Mr. Creakle was, there being one
+boy in the school on whom he never ventured to lay a hand, and that that
+boy being J. Steerforth. Steerforth himself confirmed this when it was
+stated, and said that he should like to begin to see him do it. On being
+asked by a mild boy (not me) how he would proceed if he did begin to see
+him do it, he scratched a match on purpose to shed a glare over his
+reply, and said he would commence with knocking him down with a blow on
+the forehead from the seven-and-six-penny ink-bottle that was always on
+the mantelpiece. We sat in the dark for some time, breathless.
+
+I heard that Miss Creakle was regarded by the school in general as being
+in love with Steerforth; and I am sure, as I sat in the dark, thinking
+of his nice voice, and his fine face, and his easy manner, and his
+curling hair, I thought it very likely. I heard that Mr. Mell was not a
+bad sort of fellow, but hadn't a sixpence to bless himself with; and
+that there was no doubt that old Mrs. Mell, his mother, was as poor as
+Job.
+
+One day, Traddles (the most unfortunate boy in the world) breaks a
+window accidentally with a ball. I shudder at this moment with the
+tremendous sensation of seeing it done, and feeling that the ball has
+bounded on to Mr. Creakle's sacred head.
+
+Poor Traddles! In a tight sky-blue suit that made his arms and legs like
+German sausages, or roly-poly puddings, he was the merriest and most
+miserable of all the boys. He was always being caned--I think he was
+caned every day that half-year, except one holiday Monday, when he was
+only rulered on both hands--and was always going to write to his uncle
+about it, and never did. After laying his head on the desk for a little
+while, he would cheer up somehow, begin to laugh again, and draw
+skeletons all over his slate before his eyes were dry. I used at first
+to wonder what comfort Traddles found in drawing skeletons. But I
+believe he only did it because they were easy, and didn't want any
+features.
+
+He was very honorable, Traddles was; and held it as a solemn duty in the
+boys to stand by one another. He suffered for this on several occasions;
+and particularly once, when Steerforth laughed in church, and the
+beadle thought it was Traddles, and took him out. I see him now, going
+away under guard, despised by the congregation. He never said who was
+the real offender, though he smarted for it next day, and was imprisoned
+so many hours that he came forth with a whole churchyard full of
+skeletons swarming all over his Latin Dictionary. But he had his reward.
+Steerforth said there was nothing of the sneak in Traddles, and we all
+felt that to be the highest praise. For my part, I could have gone
+through a great deal (though I was much less brave than Traddles, and
+nothing like so old) to have won such a reward, as praise from J.
+Steerforth.
+
+To see Steerforth walk to church before us, arm-in-arm with Miss
+Creakle, was one of the great sights of my life. I didn't think Miss
+Creakle equal to little Em'ly in point of beauty, and I didn't love her
+(I didn't dare); but I thought her a young lady of extraordinary
+attractions, and in point of gentility not to be surpassed. When
+Steerforth, in white trousers, carried her parasol for her, I felt proud
+to know him; and believed that she could not choose but adore him with
+all her heart. Mr. Sharp and Mr. Mell were both great personages in my
+eyes; but Steerforth was to them what the sun was to two stars. An
+accidental matter strengthened the friendship between Steerforth and me,
+in a manner that inspired me with great pride and satisfaction, though
+it sometimes led to inconvenience. It happened on one occasion, when he
+was doing me the honor of talking to me in the playground that I
+remarked that something or somebody--I forget what now--was like
+something or somebody in the story of Peregrine Pickle. He said nothing
+at the time; but when I was going to bed at night, asked me if I had got
+that book.
+
+I told him no, and explained how it was that I had read it, and all
+those other books of which I had made mention.
+
+"And do you recollect them?" Steerforth said.
+
+"Oh yes," I replied; I had a good memory, and I believed I recollected
+them very well.
+
+"Then I tell you what, young Copperfield," said Steerforth, "you shall
+tell 'em to me. I can't get to sleep very early at night, and I
+generally wake rather early in the morning. We'll go over 'em one after
+another. We'll make some regular Arabian Nights of it."
+
+I felt extremely flattered by this arrangement, and we commenced
+carrying out the plan that very evening.
+
+Steerforth showed his thought for me in one particular instance, in an
+unflinching manner that was a little troublesome, to poor Traddles and
+the rest. Peggotty's promised letter--what a comfortable letter it
+was!--arrived before "the half" of the school-term was many weeks old;
+and with it a cake in a perfect nest of oranges, and two bottles of
+cowslip wine. This treasure, as in duty bound, I laid at the feet of
+Steerforth, and begged him to divide it among the boys.
+
+"Now, I'll tell you what, young Copperfield," said he, "the wine shall
+be kept to wet your whistle when you are story-telling."
+
+I blushed at the idea, and begged him, in my modesty, not to think of
+it. But he said he had observed I was sometimes hoarse--a little roopy
+was his exact expression--and it should be, every drop, set apart to the
+purpose he had mentioned. Accordingly, it was locked up in his box, and
+drawn off by himself in a phial, and administered to me through a piece
+of quill in the cork, when I was supposed to be in want of something to
+restore my voice. Sometimes, to make it more powerful, he was so kind as
+to squeeze orange juice into it, or to stir it up with ginger, or
+dissolve a peppermint drop in it.
+
+We seem to me to have been months over Peregrine, and months more over
+the other stories. The school never flagged for want of a story, I am
+certain; and the wine lasted out almost as well as the matter. Poor
+Traddles--I never think of that boy but with a strange disposition to
+laugh, and with tears in my eyes--was a sort of echo to the story; and
+pretended to be overcome with laughing at the funny parts, and to be
+overcome with fear when there was any passage of an alarming character
+in the story. This rather put me out very often. It was a great jest of
+his, I recollect, to pretend that he couldn't keep his teeth from
+chattering, whenever mention was made of an Alguazil in connection with
+the adventures of Gil Blas; and I remember when Gil Blas met the captain
+of the robbers in Madrid, this unlucky joker acted such a shudder of
+terror that he was overheard by Mr. Creakle, who was prowling about the
+passage, and handsomely flogged for disorderly conduct in the bedroom.
+
+One day I had a visit from Mr. Peggotty and Ham, who had brought two
+enormous lobsters, a huge crab, and a large canvas bag of shrimps, as
+they "remembered I was partial to a relish with my meals."
+
+I was proud to introduce my friend Steerforth to these kind, simple
+friends, and told them how good Steerforth was to me, and how he helped
+me with my work and took care of me, and Steerforth delighted the
+fishermen with his friendly, pleasant manners.
+
+The "relish" was greatly enjoyed by the boys at supper that night. Only
+poor Traddles became very ill from eating crab so late.
+
+At last the holidays came, and I went home. The carrier, Barkis, met me
+at Yarmouth, and was rather gruff, which I soon found out was because he
+had not had any answer to his message. I promised to ask Peggotty for
+one.
+
+Ah, what a strange feeling it was to be going home when it was not home,
+and to find that every object I looked at reminded me of the happy old
+home, which was like a dream I could never dream again!
+
+God knows how like a child the memory may have been that was awakened
+within me by the sound of my mother's voice in the old parlor, when I
+set foot in the hall.
+
+I believed, from the solitary and thoughtful way in which my mother
+murmured her song, that she was alone. And I went softly into the room.
+She was sitting by the fire, nursing an infant, whose tiny hand she held
+against her neck. Her eyes were looking down upon its face, and she sat
+singing to it. I was so far right, that she had no other companion.
+
+I spoke to her, and she started, and cried out. But seeing me, she
+called me her dear Davy, her own boy; and, coming half across the room
+to meet me, kneeled down upon the ground and kissed me, and laid my head
+down on her bosom near the little creature that was nestling there, and
+put its hand up to my lips.
+
+I wish I had died. I wish I had died then, with that feeling in my
+heart! I should have been more fit for heaven than I ever have been
+since.
+
+"He is your brother," said my mother, fondling me. "Davy, my pretty boy:
+my poor child!" Then she kissed me more and more, and clasped me round
+the neck. This she was doing when Peggotty came running in, and bounced
+down on the ground beside us and went mad about us both for a quarter of
+an hour.
+
+We had a very happy afternoon the day I came. Mr. and Miss Murdstone
+were out, and I sat with my mother and Peggotty, and told them all about
+my school and Steerforth, and took the little baby in my arms and nursed
+it lovingly. But when the Murdstones came back I was more unhappy than
+ever.
+
+I felt uncomfortable about going down to breakfast in The morning, as I
+had never set eyes on Mr. Murdstone since the day when I committed my
+memorable offense. However, as it must be done, I went down, after two
+or three false starts halfway, and as many runs back on tiptoe to my own
+room, and presented myself in the parlor.
+
+He was standing before the fire with his back to it, while Miss
+Murdstone made the tea. He looked at me steadily as I entered, but made
+no sign of recognition whatever.
+
+I went up to him, after a moment of confusion, and said, "I beg your
+pardon, sir. I am very sorry for what I did, and I hope you will forgive
+me."
+
+"I am glad to hear you are sorry, David," he replied.
+
+"How do you do, ma'am?" I said to Miss Murdstone.
+
+"Ah, dear me!" sighed Miss Murdstone, giving me the tea-caddy scoop
+instead of her finger. "How long are the holidays?"
+
+"A month, ma'am."
+
+"Counting from when?"
+
+"From to-day, ma'am."
+
+"Oh!" said Miss Murdstone. "Then here's _one_ day off."
+
+She kept a calendar of the holidays in this way, and every morning
+checked a day off in exactly the same manner. She did it gloomily until
+she came to ten, but when she got into two figures she became more
+hopeful, and, as the time advanced, even jocular.
+
+Thus the holidays lagged away, until the morning came when Miss
+Murdstone said: "Here's the last day off!" and gave me the closing cup
+of tea of the vacation.
+
+I was not sorry to go. Again Mr. Barkis appeared at the gate, and again
+Miss Murdstone in her warning voice said: "Clara!" when my mother bent
+over me, to bid me farewell.
+
+I kissed her and my baby brother; it is not so much the embrace she gave
+me that lives in my mind, though it was as fervent as could be, as what
+followed the embrace.
+
+I was in the carrier's cart when I heard her calling to me. I looked
+out, and she stood at the garden gate alone, holding her baby up in her
+arms for me to see. It was cold, still weather; and not a hair of her
+head, or fold of her dress, was stirred, as she looked intently at me,
+holding up her child.
+
+So I lost her. So I saw her afterwards in my sleep at school--a silent
+presence near my bed--looking at me with the same intent face--holding
+up her baby in her arms.
+
+About two months after I had been back at school I was sent for one day
+to go into the parlor. I hurried in joyfully, for it was my birthday,
+and I thought it might be a box from Peggotty--but, alas! no; it was
+very sad news Mrs. Creakle had to give me--my dear mamma had died! Mrs.
+Creakle was very kind and gentle to me, and the boys, especially
+Traddles, were very sorry for me.
+
+I went home the next day, and heard that the dear baby had died too.
+Peggotty received me with great tenderness, and told me about my
+mother's illness and how she had sent a loving message to me.
+
+"Tell my dearest boy that his mother, as she lay here, blessed him not
+once, but a thousand times," and she had prayed to God to protect and
+keep her fatherless boy.
+
+Mr. Murdstone did not take any notice of me, nor had Miss Murdstone a
+word of kindness for me. Peggotty was to leave in a month, and, to my
+great joy, I was allowed to go with her on a visit to Mr. Peggotty. On
+our way I found out that the mysterious message I had given to Peggotty
+meant that Barkis wanted to marry her, and Peggotty had consented.
+Everyone in Mr. Peggotty's cottage was pleased to see me, and did their
+best to comfort me. Little Em'ly was at school when I arrived, and I
+went out to meet her. I knew the way by which she would come, and
+presently found myself strolling along the path to meet her.
+
+A figure appeared in the distance before long, and I soon knew it to be
+Em'ly, who was a little creature still in stature, though she was grown.
+But when she drew nearer, and I saw her blue eyes looking bluer, and her
+dimpled face looking brighter, and her own self prettier and gayer, a
+curious feeling came over me that made me pretend not to know her, and
+pass by as if I were looking at something a long way off. I have done
+such a thing since in later life, or I am mistaken.
+
+Little Em'ly didn't care a bit. She saw me well enough; but instead of
+turning round and calling after me, ran away laughing. This obliged me
+to run after her, and she ran so fast that we were very near the cottage
+before I caught her.
+
+"Oh, it's you, is it?" said little Em'ly.
+
+"Why, you knew who it was, Em'ly," said I.
+
+"And didn't _you_ know who it was?" said Em'ly. I was going to kiss her,
+but she covered her cherry lips with her hands, and said she wasn't a
+baby now, and ran away, laughing more than ever, into the house.
+
+She seemed to delight in teasing me, which was a change in her I
+wondered at very much. The tea-table was ready, and our little locker
+was put out in its old place, but instead of coming to sit by me, she
+went and bestowed her company upon that grumbling Mrs. Gummidge; and on
+Mr. Peggotty's inquiring why, rumpled her hair all over her face to hide
+it, and would do nothing but laugh.
+
+"A little puss it is!" said Mr. Peggotty, patting her with his great
+hand.
+
+"Ah," said Peggotty, running his fingers through her bright curls,
+"here's another orphan, you see, sir, and here," giving Ham a backhanded
+knock in the chest, "is another of 'em, though he don't look much like
+it."
+
+"If I had _you_ for a guardian, Mr. Peggotty," said I, "I don't think I
+should _feel_ much like it."
+
+Em'ly was confused by our all observing her, and hung down her head, and
+her face was covered with blushes. Glancing up presently through her
+stray curls, and seeing that we were all looking at her still (I am sure
+I, for one, could have looked at her for hours), she ran away, and kept
+away till it was nearly bedtime.
+
+I lay down in the old little bed in the stern of the boat, and the wind
+came moaning on across the flat as it had done before. But I could not
+help fancying, now that it moaned, of those who were gone; and instead
+of thinking that the sea might rise in the night and float the boat
+away, I thought of the sea that had risen, since I last heard those
+sounds, and drowned my happy home, I recollect, as the wind and water
+began to sound fainter in my ears, putting a short clause into my
+prayers, petitioning that I might grow up to marry little Em'ly, and so
+dropping lovingly asleep.
+
+During this visit Peggotty was married to Mr. Barkis, and had a nice
+little house of her own, and I spent the night before I was to return
+home in a little room in the roof.
+
+"Young or old, Davy dear, so long as I have this house over my head,"
+said Peggotty, "you shall find it as if I expected you here directly
+every minute. I shall keep it as I used to keep your old little room, my
+darling, and if you was to go to China, you might think of its being
+kept just the same all the time you were away."
+
+I felt how good and true a friend she was, and thanked her as well as I
+could, for they had brought me to the gate of my home, and Peggotty had
+me clasped in her arms.
+
+I was poor and lonely at home, with no one near to speak a loving word,
+or a face to look on with love or liking, only the two persons who had
+broken my mother's heart. How utterly wretched and forlorn I felt! I
+found I was not to go back to school any more, and wandered about sad
+and solitary, neglected and uncared for. Peggotty's weekly visits were
+my only comfort. I longed to go to school, however hard an one, to be
+taught something anyhow, anywhere--but no one took any pains with me,
+and I had no friends near who could help me.
+
+At last one day, after some weary months had passed, Mr. Murdstone told
+me I was to go to London and earn my own living. There was a place for
+me at Murdstone & Grinby's, a firm in the wine trade. My lodging and
+clothes would be provided for me by my step-father, and I would earn
+enough for my food and pocket money. The next day, I was sent up to
+London with the manager, dressed in a shabby little white hat with black
+crape round it for my mother, a black jacket, and hard, stiff corduroy
+trousers, a little fellow of ten years old, to fight my own battles with
+the world!
+
+My place, I found, was one of the lowest in the firm of Murdstone &
+Grinby, with boys of no education and in quite an inferior station to
+myself--my duties were to wash the bottles, stick on labels, and so on.
+I was utterly miserable at being degraded in this way, when I thought of
+my former companions, Steerforth and Traddles, and my hopes of becoming
+a learned and famous man, and shed bitter tears, as I feared I would
+forget all I had learnt at school. My lodging, one bare little room, was
+in the house of some people named Micawber, shiftless, careless,
+good-natured people, who were always in debt and difficulties. I felt
+great pity for their misfortunes and did what I could to help poor Mrs.
+Micawber to sell her books and other little things she could spare, to
+buy food for herself, her husband, and their four children. I was too
+young and childish to know how to provide properly for myself, and often
+found I was obliged to live on bread and slices of cold pudding at the
+end of the week. If I had not been a very innocent-minded, good little
+boy, I might easily have fallen into bad ways at this time. But God took
+care of me and kept me from harm. I would not even tell Peggotty how
+miserable I was, for fear of distressing her.
+
+The troubles of the Micawbers increased more and more, until at last
+they were obliged to leave London. I was very sad at this, for I had
+been with them so long that I felt they were my friends, and the
+prospect of being once more utterly alone and having to find a lodging
+with strangers, made me so unhappy that I determined to endure this sort
+of life no longer. The last Sunday the Micawbers were in town I dined
+with them. I had bought a spotted horse for their little boy and a doll
+for the little girl, and had saved up a shilling for the poor
+servant-girl. After I had seen them off the next morning by the coach, I
+wrote to Peggotty to ask her if she knew where my aunt, Miss Betsy
+Trotwood, lived, and to borrow half-a-guinea; for I had resolved to run
+away from Murdstone & Grinby's, and go to this aunt and tell her my
+story. I remembered my mother telling me of her visit when I was a baby,
+and that she fancied Miss Betsy had stroked her hair gently, and this
+gave me courage to appeal to her. Peggotty wrote, enclosing the
+half-guinea, and saying she only knew Miss Trotwood lived near Dover,
+but whether in that place itself, or at Folkestone, Sandgate, or Hythe,
+she could not tell. Hearing that all these places were close together, I
+made up my mind to start. As I had received my week's wages in advance,
+I waited till the following Saturday, thinking it would not be honest to
+go before. I went out to look for someone to carry my box to the coach
+office, and unfortunately hired a wicked young man who not only ran off
+with the box, but robbed me of my half-guinea, leaving me in dire
+distress. In despair, I started off to walk to Dover, and was forced to
+sell my waistcoat to buy some bread. The first night I found my way to
+my old school at Blackheath, and slept on a haystack close by, feeling
+some comfort in the thought of the boys being near. I knew Steerforth
+had left, or I would have tried to see him.
+
+On I trudged the next day and sold my jacket at Chatham to a dreadful
+old man, who kept me waiting all day for the money, which was only one
+shilling and fourpence. I was afraid to buy anything but bread or to
+spend any money on a bed or a shelter for the night, and was terribly
+frightened by some rough tramps, who threw stones at me when I did not
+answer to their calls. After six days, I arrived at Dover, ragged,
+dusty, and half-dead with hunger and fatigue. But here, at first, I
+could get no tidings of my aunt, and, in despair, was going to try some
+of the other places Peggotty had mentioned, when the driver of a fly
+dropped his horsecloth, and as I was handing it up to him, I saw
+something kind in the man's face that encouraged me to ask once more if
+he knew where Miss Trotwood lived.
+
+The man directed me towards some houses on the heights, and thither I
+toiled. Going into a little shop, I by chance met with Miss Trotwood's
+maid, who showed me the house, and went in leaving me standing at the
+gate, a forlorn little creature, without a jacket or waistcoat, my white
+hat crushed out of shape, my shoes worn out, my shirt and trousers torn
+and stained, my pretty curly hair tangled, my face and hands sunburnt
+and covered with dust. Lifting my eyes to one of the windows above, I
+saw a pleasant-faced gentleman with gray hair, who nodded at me several
+times, then shook his head and went away. I was just turning away to
+think what I should do, when a tall, erect elderly lady, with a
+gardening apron on and a knife in her hand, came out of the house, and
+began to dig up a root in the garden.
+
+"Go away," she said. "Go away. No boys here."
+
+But I felt desperate. Going in softly, I stood beside her, and touched
+her with my finger, and said timidly, "If you please, ma'am--" and when
+she looked up, I went on--
+
+"Please, aunt, I am your nephew."
+
+"Oh, Lord!" she exclaimed in astonishment, and sat flat down on the
+path, staring at me, while I went on--
+
+"I am David Copperfield of Blunderstone, in Suffolk, where you came the
+night I was born, and saw my dear mamma. I have been very unhappy since
+she died. I have been neglected and taught nothing, and thrown upon
+myself, and put to work not fit for me. It made me run away to you. I
+was robbed at first starting out and have walked all the way, and have
+never slept in a bed since I began the journey." Here I broke into a
+passion of crying, and my aunt jumped up and took me into the house,
+where she opened a cupboard and took out some bottles, pouring some of
+the contents of each into my mouth, not noticing in her agitation what
+they were, for I fancied I tasted anise-seed water, anchovy sauce, and
+salad dressing! Then she put me on the sofa and sent the servant to ask
+"Mr. Dick" to come down. The gentleman whom I had seen at the window
+came in and was told by Miss Trotwood who the ragged little object on
+the sofa was, and she finished by saying--
+
+"Now here you see young David Copperfield, and the question is what
+shall I do with him?"
+
+"Do with him?" answered Mr. Dick. Then, after some consideration, and
+looking at me, he said, "Well, if I was you, I should wash him!"
+
+Miss Trotwood was quite pleased at this, and a warm bath was got ready
+at once, after which I was dressed in a shirt and trousers belonging to
+Mr. Dick (for Janet had burnt my rags), rolled up in several shawls, and
+put on the sofa till dinner-time, where I slept, and woke with the
+impression that my aunt had come and put my hair off my face, and
+murmured, "Pretty fellow, poor fellow."
+
+After dinner I had to tell my story all over again to my aunt and Mr.
+Dick. Miss Trotwood again asked Mr. Dick's advice, and was delighted
+when that gentleman suggested I should be put to bed. I knelt down to
+say my prayers that night in a pleasant room facing the sea, and as I
+lay in the clean, snow-white bed, I felt so grateful and comforted that
+I prayed earnestly I might never be homeless again, and might never
+forget the homeless.
+
+The next morning my aunt told me she had written to Mr. Murdstone. I was
+alarmed to think that my step-father knew where I was, and exclaimed--
+
+"Oh, I don't know what I shall do if I have to go back to Mr.
+Murdstone!"
+
+But my aunt said nothing of her intentions, and I was uncertain what was
+to become of me. I hoped she might befriend me.
+
+At last Mr. and Miss Murdstone arrived. To Miss Betsy's great
+indignation, Miss Murdstone rode a donkey across the green in front of
+the house, and stopped at the gate. Nothing made Miss Trotwood so angry
+as to see donkeys on that green, and I had already seen several battles
+between my aunt or Janet and the donkey boys.
+
+After driving away the donkey and the boy who had dared to bring it
+there, Miss Trotwood received her visitors. She kept me near her, fenced
+in with a chair.
+
+Mr. Murdstone told Miss Betsy that I was a very bad, stubborn,
+violent-tempered boy, whom he had tried to improve, but could not
+succeed; that he had put me in a respectable business from which I had
+run away. If Miss Trotwood chose to protect and encourage me now, she
+must do it always, for he had come to fetch me away from there and then,
+and if I was ready to come, and Miss Trotwood did not wish to give me up
+to be dealt with exactly as Mr. Murdstone liked, he would cast me off
+for always, and have no more to do with me.
+
+"Are you ready to go, David?" asked my aunt.
+
+But I answered no, and begged and prayed her for my father's sake to
+befriend and protect me, for neither Mr. nor Miss Murdstone had ever
+liked me or been kind to me and had made my mamma, who always loved me
+dearly, very unhappy about me, and I had been very miserable.
+
+"Mr. Dick," said Miss Trotwood, "what shall I do with this child?"
+
+Mr. Dick considered. "Have him measured for a suit of clothes directly."
+
+"Mr. Dick," said Miss Trotwood, "your common sense is invaluable."
+
+Then she pulled me towards her, and said to Mr. Murdstone, "You can go
+when you like. I'll take my chance with the boy. If he's all you say he
+is I can at least do as much for him as you have done. But I don't
+believe a word of it."
+
+Then she told Mr. Murdstone what she thought of the way he had treated
+me and my mother, which did not make that gentleman feel very
+comfortable, and finished by turning to Miss Murdstone and saying--
+
+"Good-day to you, too, ma'am, and if I ever see you ride a donkey across
+my green again, as sure as you have a head upon your shoulders, I'll
+knock your bonnet off and tread upon it!"
+
+This startled Miss Murdstone so much that she went off quite quietly
+with her brother, while I, overjoyed, threw my arms round my aunt's
+neck, and kissed and thanked her with great heartiness.
+
+Some clothes were bought for me that same day and marked "Trotwood
+Copperfield," for my aunt wished to call me by her name.
+
+Now I felt my troubles were over, and I began quite a new life, well
+cared for and kindly treated. I was sent to a very nice school in
+Canterbury, where my aunt left me with these words, which I never
+forgot:
+
+"Trot, be a credit to yourself, to me, and Mr. Dick, and heaven be with
+you. Never be mean in anything, never be false, never be cruel. Avoid
+these three vices, Trot, and I shall always be hopeful of you?"
+
+I did my best to show my gratitude to my dear aunt by studying hard, and
+trying to be all she could wish.
+
+When you are older you can read how Little David Copperfield grew up to
+be a good, clever man, and met again all his old friends, and made many
+new ones.
+
+Also, what became of Steerforth, Traddles, the Peggottys, little Em'ly,
+and the Micawbers.
+
+
+
+
+VIII.
+
+JENNY WREN.
+
+
+WALKING into the city one holiday, a great many years ago, a gentleman
+ran up the steps of a tall house in the neighborhood of St. Mary Axe.
+The lower windows were those of a counting-house but the blinds, like
+those of the entire front of the house, were drawn down.
+
+The gentleman knocked and rang several times before any one came, but at
+last an old man opened the door. "What were you up to that you did not
+hear me?" said Mr. Fledgeby irritably.
+
+"I was taking the air at the top of the house, sir," said the old man
+meekly, "it being a holiday. What might you please to want, sir?"
+
+"Humph! Holiday indeed," grumbled his master, who was a toy merchant
+amongst other things. He then seated himself in the counting-house and
+gave the old man--a Jew and Riah by name--directions about the dressing
+of some dolls about which he had come to speak, and, as he rose to go,
+exclaimed--
+
+[Illustration: "Seated on the Crystal Carpet Were Two Girls."
+
+                                                   Page 179]
+
+"By-the-by, how _do_ you take the air? Do you stick your head out of a
+chimney-pot?"
+
+"No, sir, I have made a little garden on the leads."
+
+"Let's look it at," said Mr. Fledgeby.
+
+"Sir, I have company there," returned Riah hesitating, "but will you
+please come up and see them?"
+
+Mr. Fledgeby nodded, and, passing his master with a bow, the old man led
+the way up flight after flight of stairs, till they arrived at the
+house-top. Seated on a carpet, and leaning against a chimney-stack, were
+two girls bending over books. Some humble creepers were trained round
+the chimney-pots, and evergreens were placed round the roof, and a few
+more books, a basket of gaily colored scraps, and bits of tinsel, and
+another of common print stuff lay near. One of the girls rose on seeing
+that Riah had brought a visitor, but the other remarked, "I'm the person
+of the house down-stairs, but I can't get up, whoever you are, because
+my back is bad and my legs are queer."
+
+"This is my master," said Riah, speaking to the two girls, "and this,"
+he added, turning to Mr. Fledgeby, "is Miss Jenny Wren; she lives in
+this house, and is a clever little dressmaker for little people. Her
+friend Lizzie," continued Riah, introducing the second girl. "They are
+good girls, both, and as busy as they are good; in spare moments they
+come up here and take to book learning."
+
+"We are glad to come up here for rest, sir," said Lizzie, with a
+grateful look at the old Jew. "No one can tell the rest what this place
+is to us."
+
+"Humph!" said Mr. Fledgeby, looking round, "Humph!" He was so much
+surprised that apparently he couldn't get beyond that word, and as he
+went down again the old chimney-pots in their black cowls seemed to turn
+round and look after him as if they were saying "Humph" too.
+
+Lizzie, the elder of these two girls, was strong and handsome, but
+little Jenny Wren, whom she so loved and protected, was small and
+deformed, though she had a beautiful little face, and the longest and
+loveliest golden hair in the world, which fell about her like a cloak of
+shining curls, as though to hide the poor little mis-shapen figure.
+
+The Jew Riah, as well as Lizzie, was always kind and gentle to Jenny
+Wren, who called him her godfather. She had a father, who shared her
+poor little rooms, whom she called her child; for he was a bad, drunken,
+worthless old man, and the poor girl had to care for him, and earn
+money to keep them both. She suffered a great deal, for the poor little
+bent back always ached sadly, and was often weary from constant work but
+it was only on rare occasions, when alone or with her friend Lizzie, who
+often brought her work and sat in Jenny's room, that the brave child
+ever complained of her hard lot. Sometimes the two girls Jenny helping
+herself along with a crutch, would go and walk about the fashionable
+streets, in order to note how the grand folks were dressed. As they
+walked along, Jenny would tell her friend of the fancies she had when
+sitting alone at her work. "I imagine birds till I can hear them sing,"
+she said one day, "and flowers till I can smell them. And oh! the
+beautiful children that come to me in the early mornings! They are quite
+different to other children, not like me, never cold, or anxious, or
+tired, or hungry, never any pain; they come in numbers, in long bright
+slanting rows, all dressed in white, and with shiny heads. 'Who is this
+in pain?' they say, and they sweep around and about me, take me up in
+their arms, and I feel so light, and all the pain goes. I know when they
+are coming a long way off, by hearing them say, 'Who is this in pain?'
+and I answer, 'Oh my blessed children, it's poor me! have pity on me,
+and take me up and then the pain will go."
+
+Lizzie sat stroking and brushing the beautiful hair, whilst the tired
+little dressmaker leant against her when they were at home again, and as
+she kissed her good-night, a miserable old man stumbled into the room.
+"How's my Jenny Wren, best of children?" he mumbled, as he shuffled
+unsteadily towards her, but Jenny pointed her small finger towards him,
+exclaiming--"Go along with you, you bad, wicked old child, you
+troublesome, wicked old thing, _I_ know where you have been, _I_ know
+your tricks and your manners." The wretched man began to whimper like a
+scolded child. "Slave, slave, slave, from morning to night," went on
+Jenny, still shaking her finger at him, "and all for this; ain't you
+ashamed of yourself, you disgraceful boy?"
+
+"Yes; my dear, yes," stammered the tipsy old father, tumbling into a
+corner. Thus was the poor little dolls' dressmaker dragged down day by
+day by the very hands that should have cared for and held her up; poor,
+poor little dolls' dressmaker! One day when Jenny was on her way home
+with Riah, who had accompanied her on one of her walks to the West End,
+they came on a small crowd of people. A tipsy man had been knocked down
+and badly hurt. "Let us see what it is!" said Jenny, coming swiftly
+forward on her crutches. The next moment she exclaimed--"Oh,
+gentlemen--gentlemen, he is my child, he belongs to me, my poor, bad old
+child!"
+
+"Your child--belongs to you," repeated the man who was about to lift the
+helpless figure on to a stretcher, which had been brought for the
+purpose. "Aye, it's old Dolls--tipsy old Dolls," cried someone in the
+crowd, for it was by this name that they knew the old man.
+
+"He's her father, sir," said Riah in a low tone to the doctor who was
+now bending over the stretcher.
+
+"So much the worse," answered the doctor, "for the man is dead."
+
+Yes, "Mr. Dolls" was dead, and many were the dresses which the weary
+fingers of the sorrowful little worker must make in order to pay for his
+humble funeral and buy a black frock for herself. Riah sat by her in her
+poor room, saying a word of comfort now and then, and Lizzie came and
+went, and did all manner of little things to help her; but often the
+tears rolled down on to her work. "My poor child," she said to Riah, "my
+poor old child, and to think I scolded him so."
+
+"You were always a good, brave, patient girl," returned Riah, smiling a
+little over her quaint fancy about her _child_, "always good and
+patient, however tired."
+
+And so the poor little "person of the house" was left alone but for the
+faithful affection of the kind Jew and her friend Lizzie. Her room grew
+pretty and comfortable, for she was in great request in her
+"profession," as she called it, and there were now no one to spend and
+waste her earnings. But nothing could make her life otherwise than a
+suffering one till the happy morning when her child-angels visited her
+for the last time and carried her away to the land where all such pain
+as hers is healed for evermore.
+
+[Illustration: "Keep Still, You Little Imp, or I'll Cut Your Throat."
+
+                                                           Page 185]
+
+
+
+
+IX.
+
+PIP'S ADVENTURE
+
+
+ALL that little Philip Pirrip, usually called Pip, knew about his father
+and mother, and his five little brothers, was from seeing their
+tombstones in the churchyard. He was cared for by his sister, who was
+twenty years older than himself. She had married a blacksmith, named Joe
+Gargery, a kind, good man, while she, unfortunately, was a hard, stern
+woman, and treated her little brother and her amiable husband with great
+harshness. They lived in a marshy part of the country, about twenty
+miles from the sea.
+
+One cold, raw day towards evening, when Pip was about six years old, he
+had wandered into the churchyard, and was trying to make out what he
+could of the inscriptions on his family tombstones. The darkness was
+coming on, and feeling very lonely and frightened, he began to cry.
+
+"Hold your noise!" cried a terrible voice; and a man started up from
+among the graves close to him. "Keep still, you little imp, or I'll cut
+your throat!"
+
+He was a dreadful looking man, dressed in coarse gray cloth, with a
+great iron on his leg. Wet, muddy, and miserable, he limped and
+shivered, and glared and growled; his teeth chattered in his head, as he
+seized Pip, by the chin.
+
+"Oh! don't cut my throat, sir," cried Pip, in terror. "Pray don't do it,
+sir."
+
+"Tell us your name!" said the man. "Quick!"
+
+"Pip, sir."
+
+"Once more," said the man, staring at him, "Give it mouth."
+
+"Pip. Pip, sir."
+
+"Show us where you live," said the man. "Point out the place."
+
+Pip showed him the village, about a mile or more from the church.
+
+The man looked at him for a moment, and then turned him upside down and
+emptied his pockets. He found nothing in them but a piece of bread,
+which he ate ravenously.
+
+"You young dog," said the man, licking his lips, "what fat cheeks you
+ha' got.... Darn me if I couldn't eat 'em, and if I han't half a mind
+to!"
+
+Pip said earnestly that he hoped he would not.
+
+"Now lookee here," said the man. "Where's your mother?"
+
+"There sir," said Pip.
+
+At this the man started and seemed about to run away, but stopped and
+looked over his shoulder.
+
+"There, sir," explained Pip, showing him the tombstone.
+
+"Oh, and is that your father along of your mother?"
+
+"Yes, sir," said Pip.
+
+"Ha!" muttered the man, "then who d'ye live with--supposin' you're
+kindly let to live, which I han't made up my mind about?"
+
+"My sister, sir, Mrs. Joe Gargery, wife of Joe Gargery, the blacksmith,
+sir."
+
+"Blacksmith, eh?" said the man, and looked down at his leg. Then he
+seized the trembling little boy by both arms, and glaring down at him,
+he said--
+
+"Now lookee here, the question being whether you're to be let to live.
+You know what a file is?"
+
+"Yes, sir."
+
+"And you know what wittles is. Something to eat?"
+
+"Yes, sir."
+
+"You get me a file, and you get me wittles--you bring 'em both to me."
+All this time he was tilting poor Pip backwards till he was so
+dreadfully frightened and giddy that he clung to the man with both
+hands.
+
+"You bring me, to-morrow morning early, that file and them wittles. You
+do it, and you never dare to say a word or dare to make a sign
+concerning your having seen such a person as me, or any person sumever,
+and you shall be let to live." Then he threatened all sorts of dreadful
+and terrible things to poor Pip if he failed to do all he had commanded,
+and made him solemnly promise to bring him what he wanted, and to keep
+the secret. Then he let him go, saying, "You remember what you've
+undertook, and you get home."
+
+"Goo--good-night, sir," faltered Pip.
+
+"Much of that!" said he, glancing over the cold wet flat. "I wish I was
+a frog or a eel!"
+
+Pip ran home without stopping. Joe was sitting in the chimney-corner,
+and told him Mrs. Joe had been out to look for him, and taken Tickler
+with her. Tickler was a cane, and Pip was rather downhearted by this
+piece of news.
+
+Mrs. Joe came in almost directly, and, after having given Pip a taste of
+Tickler, she sat down to prepare the tea, and, cutting a huge slice of
+bread and butter, she gave half of it to Joe and half to Pip. Pip
+managed, after some time, to slip his down the leg of his trousers, and
+Joe, thinking he had swallowed it, was dreadfully alarmed and begged
+him not to bolt his food like that. "Pip, old chap, you'll do yourself a
+mischief--it'll stick somewhere, you can't have chewed it, Pip. You
+know, Pip, you and me is always friends and I'd be the last one to tell
+upon you any time, but such a--such a most uncommon bolt as that."
+
+"Been bolting his food, has he?" cried Mrs. Joe.
+
+"You know, old chap," said Joe. "I bolted myself when I was your
+age--frequent--and as a boy I've been among a many bolters; but I never
+see your bolting equal yet, Pip, and it's a mercy you ain't bolted
+dead."
+
+Mrs. Joe made a dive at Pip, fished him up by the hair, saying, "You
+come along and be dosed."
+
+It was Christmas eve, and Pip had to stir the pudding from seven to
+eight, and found the bread and butter dreadfully in his way. At last he
+slipped out and put it away in his little bedroom.
+
+Poor Pip passed a wretched night, thinking of the dreadful promise he
+had made, and as soon as it was beginning to get light outside he got up
+and crept down-stairs, fancying that every board creaked out "Stop
+thief!" and "Get up, Mrs. Joe!"
+
+As quickly as he could, he took some bread, some rind of cheese, about
+half a jar of mince-meat, which he tied up in a handkerchief, with the
+slice of bread and butter, some brandy from a stone bottle, a meat-bone
+with very little on it, and a pork-pipe, which he found on an upper
+shelf. Then he got a file from among Joe's tools, and ran for the
+marshes.
+
+It was a very misty morning, and Pip imagined that all the cattle stared
+at him, as if to say, "Halloa, young thief!" and one black ox with a
+white cravat on, that made Pip think of a clergyman, looked so
+accusingly at him, that Pip blubbered out, "I couldn't help it, sir! It
+wasn't for myself I took it."
+
+Upon which the ox put down his head, blew a cloud of smoke out of his
+nose, and vanished with a kick-up of his hind legs and a flourish of his
+tail.
+
+Pip was soon at the place of meeting after that, and there was the
+man--hugging himself and limping to and fro, as if he had never all
+night left off hugging and limping. He was awfully cold, to be sure. Pip
+half expected to see him drop down before his face and die of cold. His
+eyes looked so awfully hungry, too, that when Pip handed him the file it
+occurred to him he would have tried to eat it, if he had not seen the
+bundle. He did not turn Pip upside down, this time, to get at what he
+had, but left him right side upward while he opened the bundle and
+emptied his pockets.
+
+"What's in the bottle, boy?" said he.
+
+"Brandy," said Pip.
+
+He was already handing mince-pie down his throat in the most curious
+manner, more like a man who was putting it away somewhere in a violent
+hurry than a man who was eating it--but he left off to take some of the
+liquor, shivering all the while so violently that it was quite as much
+as he could do to keep the neck of the bottle between his teeth.
+
+"I think you have got the chills," said Pip.
+
+"I'm much of your opinion, boy," said he.
+
+"It's bad about here. You've been lying out on the marshes, and they're
+dreadful for the chills. Rheumatic, too."
+
+"I'll eat my breakfast before they're the death of me," said he. "I'd do
+that, if I was going to be strung up to that there gallows as there is
+over there directly arterward. I'll beat the shivers so far, I'll bet
+you a guinea."
+
+He was gobbling mince-meat, meat-bone, bread, cheese, and pork-pie all
+at once, staring distrustfully while he did so at the mist all round,
+and often stopping--even stopping his jaws--to listen. Some real or
+fancied sound, some clink upon the river or breathing of beasts upon
+the marsh, now gave him a start, and he said, suddenly:
+
+"You're not a false imp? You brought no one with you?"
+
+"No, sir! No!"
+
+"Nor told nobody to follow you?"
+
+"No!"
+
+"Well," said he, "I believe you. You'd be but a fierce young hound
+indeed, if at your time of life you should help to hunt a wretched
+warmint, hunted as near death and dunghill as this poor wretched warmint
+is!"
+
+Something clicked in his throat, as if he had works in him like a clock,
+and was going to strike. And he smeared his ragged, rough sleeve over
+his eyes.
+
+Pitying his desolation, and watching him as he gradually settled down
+upon the pie, Pip made bold to say, "I am glad you enjoy it."
+
+"Did you speak?"
+
+"I said I was glad you enjoyed it."
+
+"Thankee, my boy--. I do."
+
+Pip had often watched a large dog eating his food; and he now noticed a
+decided similarity between the dog's way of eating and the man's. The
+man took strong, sharp, sudden bites, just like the dog. He swallowed,
+or rather snapped up, every mouthful too soon and too fast; and he
+looked sideways here and there while he ate, as if he thought there was
+danger of somebody's coming to take the pie away. He was altogether too
+unsettled in his mind over it to enjoy it comfortably, Pip thought, or
+to have anybody to dine with him, without making a chop with his jaws at
+the visitor. In all of which particulars he was very like the dog.
+
+Pip watched him trying to file the iron off his leg, and then being
+afraid of stopping longer away from home, he ran off.
+
+Pip passed a wretched morning, expecting every moment that the
+disappearance of the pie would be found out. But Mrs. Joe was too much
+taken up with preparing the dinner, for they were expecting visitors,
+and were to have a superb dinner, consisting of a leg of pickled pork
+and greens, and a pair of roast stuffed fowls, a mince-pie, and a
+pudding.
+
+Just at the end of the dinner Pip thought his time had come to be found
+out, for his sister said graciously to her guests--
+
+"You must taste a most delightful and delicious present I have had. It's
+a pie, a savory pork-pie."
+
+Pip could bear it no longer, and ran for the door, and there ran head
+foremost into a party of soldiers with their muskets, one of whom held
+out a pair of handcuffs to him, saying, "Here you are, look sharp, come
+on." But they had not come for him, they only wanted Joe to mend the
+handcuffs, for they were on the search for two convicts who had escaped
+and were somewhere hid in the marshes. This turned the attention of Mrs.
+Joe from the disappearance of the pie, without which she had come back,
+in great astonishment. When the handcuffs were mended the soldiers went
+off, accompanied by Joe and one of the visitors, and Joe took Pip and
+carried him on his back.
+
+Pip whispered, "I hope, Joe, we shan't find them," and Joe answered,
+"I'd give a shilling if they had cut and run, Pip."
+
+But the soldiers soon caught them, and one was the wretched man who had
+talked with Pip; and once when he looked at Pip, the child shook his
+head to try and let him know he had said nothing.
+
+But the convict, without looking at anyone, told the sergeant he wanted
+to say something to prevent other people being under suspicion, and said
+he had taken some "wittles" from the blacksmith's. "It was some broken
+wittles, that's what it was, and a dram of liquor, and a pie."
+
+"Have you happened to miss such an article as a pie, blacksmith?"
+inquired the sergeant.
+
+"My wife did, at the very moment when you came in. Don't you know, Pip?"
+
+"So," said the convict, looking at Joe, "you're the blacksmith, are you?
+Then, I'm sorry to say, I've eat your pie."
+
+"God knows you're welcome to it," said Joe. "We don't know what you have
+done, but we wouldn't have you starved to death for it, poor miserable
+fellow-creature. Would us, Pip?"
+
+Then the boat came, and the convicts were taken back to their prison,
+and Joe carried Pip home.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+Some years after, some mysterious friend sent money for Pip to be
+educated and brought up as a gentleman; but it was only when Pip was
+quite grown up that he discovered this mysterious friend was the
+wretched convict who had frightened him so dreadfully that cold, dark
+Christmas eve. He had been sent to a far away land, and there had grown
+rich; but he never forgot the little boy who had been kind to him.
+
+
+
+
+X.
+
+TODGERS'.
+
+
+THIS is the story of a visit made by Mr. Pecksniff, a very pompous man,
+and his two daughters Miss Mercy and Miss Charity, to the boarding-house
+kept by Mrs. Todgers, in London; and a call while there on Miss Pinch, a
+governess or young lady teaching in a rich family.
+
+Mr. Pecksniff with his two beautiful young daughters looked about him
+for a moment, and then knocked at the door of a very dingy building,
+even among the choice collection of dingy houses around, on the front of
+which was a little oval board, like a tea-tray, with this
+inscription--"Commercial Boarding-house: M. Todgers."
+
+It seemed that M. Todgers was not up yet, for Mr. Pecksniff knocked
+twice and rang three times without making any impression on anything but
+a dog over the way. At last a chain and some bolts were withdrawn with a
+rusty noise, and a small boy with a large red head, and no nose to speak
+of, and a very dirty boot on his left arm, appeared; who (being
+surprised) rubbed the nose just mentioned with the back of a
+shoe-brush, and said nothing.
+
+"Still abed, my man?" asked Mr. Pecksniff.
+
+"Still abed!" replied the boy. "I wish they was still abed. They're very
+noisy abed; all calling for their boots at once. I thought you was the
+paper, and wondered why you didn't shove yourself through the grating as
+usual. What do you want?"
+
+Considering his years, which were tender, the youth may be said to have
+asked this question sternly, and in something of a defiant manner. But
+Mr. Pecksniff, without taking offense at his bearing, put a card in his
+hand, and bade him take that up-stairs, and show them in the meanwhile
+into a room where there was a fire.
+
+Surely there never was, in any other borough, city, or hamlet, in the
+world, such a singular sort of a place as Todgers'. And surely London,
+to judge from that part of it which hemmed Todgers' round, and hustled
+it, and crushed it, and stuck its brick-and-mortar elbows into it, and
+kept the air from it, and stood perpetually between it and the light,
+was worthy of Todgers'.
+
+There were more trucks near Todgers' than you would suppose a whole city
+could ever need; not trucks at work but a vagabond race, forever
+lounging in the narrow lanes before their masters' doors and stopping up
+the pass; so that when a stray hackney-coach or lumbering wagon came
+that way, they were the cause of such an uproar as enlivened the whole
+neighborhood, and made the very bells in the next church-tower ring
+again. In the narrow dark streets near Todgers', wine-merchants and
+wholesale dealers in grocery-ware had perfect little towns of their own;
+and, deep among the very foundations of these buildings, the ground was
+undermined and burrowed out into stables, where cart-horses, troubled by
+rats, might be heard on a quiet Sunday, rattling their halters, as
+disturbed spirits in tales of haunted houses are said to clank their
+chains.
+
+To tell of half the queer old taverns that had a drowsy and secret
+existence near Todgers' would fill a goodly book; while a second volume
+no less in size might be given to an account of the quaint old guests
+who frequented their dimly-lighted parlors.
+
+The top of the house was worthy of notice. There was a sort of terrace
+on the roof, with posts and fragments of rotten lines, once intended to
+dry clothes upon; and there were two or three tea-chests out there, full
+of earth, with forgotten plants in them, like old walking-sticks.
+Whoever climbed to this observatory was stunned at first from having
+knocked his head against the little door in coming out; and, after that,
+was for the moment choked from having looked, perforce, straight down
+the kitchen chimney; but these two stages over, there were things to
+gaze at from the top of Todgers', well worth your seeing, too. For,
+first and foremost, if the day were bright, you observed upon the
+house-tops, stretching far away, a long dark path--the shadow of the
+tall Monument which stands in memory of the great fire in London many
+years before: and turning round, the Monument itself was close beside
+you, with every hair erect upon his golden head, as if the doings of the
+city frightened him. Then there were steeples, towers, belfries, shining
+vanes and masts of ships, a very forest. Gables, house-tops,
+garret-windows, wilderness upon wilderness. Smoke and noise enough for
+all the world at once.
+
+After the first glance, there were slight features in the midst of this
+crowd of objects, which sprung out from the mass without any reason, as
+it were, and took hold of the attention whether the spectator would or
+no. Thus, the revolving chimney-pots on one great stack of buildings
+seemed to be turning gravely to each other every now and then, and
+whispering the result of their separate observation of what was going on
+below. Others, of a crooked-back shape, appeared to be maliciously
+holding themselves askew, that they might shut the prospect out and
+baffle Todgers'. The man who was mending a pen at an upper window over
+the way became of vast importance in the scene, and made a blank in it,
+ridiculously large in its size, when he went away. The fluttering of a
+piece of cloth upon the dyer's pole had far more interest for the moment
+than all the changing motion of the crowd. Yet even while the looker-on
+felt angry with himself for this, and wondered how it was the tumult
+swelled into a roar; the hosts of objects seemed to thicken and expand a
+hundredfold; and after gazing round him, quite scared, he turned into
+Todgers' again, much more rapidly than he came out; and ten to one he
+told M. Todgers afterwards that if he hadn't done so, he would certainly
+have come into the street by the shortest cut: that is to say,
+head-foremost.
+
+So said the two Miss Pecksniffs, when they came down with Mrs. Todgers
+from the roof of the house; leaving the youthful porter to close the
+door and follow them down-stairs: who being of a playful temperament,
+and contemplating with a delight peculiar to his sex and time of life
+any chance of dashing himself into small fragments, lingered behind to
+walk upon the wall around the roof.
+
+It was the second day of their stay in London, and by this time the
+Misses Pecksniff and Mrs. Todgers were becoming very friendly, insomuch
+that the last-named lady had already told the story of three early
+disappointments in love; and had furthermore given her young friends a
+general account of the life, conduct, and character of Mr. Todgers: who,
+it seemed, had cut his life as a husband rather short, by unlawfully
+running away from his happiness, and staying for a time in foreign
+countries as a bachelor.
+
+"Your pa was once a little particular in his attentions, my dears," said
+Mrs. Todgers, "but to be your ma was too much happiness denied me. You'd
+hardly know who this was done for, perhaps?"
+
+She called their attention to an oval miniature, like a little blister,
+which was tacked up over the kettle-holder, and in which there was a
+dreamy shadowing forth of her own visage.
+
+"It's a speaking likeness!" cried the two Misses Pecksniff.
+
+"It was considered so once," said Mrs. Todgers, warming herself in a
+gentlemanly manner at the fire: "but I hardly thought you would have
+known it, my loves."
+
+They would have known it anywhere. If they could have met with it in the
+street or seen it in a shop-window, they would have cried, "Good
+gracious! Mrs. Todgers!"
+
+"Being in charge of a boarding-house like this makes sad havoc with the
+features, my dear Misses Pecksniff," said Mrs. Todgers. "The gravy alone
+is enough to add twenty years to one's age, I do assure you."
+
+"Lor!" cried the two Misses Pecksniff.
+
+"The anxiety of that one thing, my dears," said Mrs. Todgers, "keeps the
+mind continually upon the stretch. There is no such passion in human
+nature as the passion for gravy among business men. It's nothing to say
+a joint won't yield--a whole animal wouldn't yield--the amount of gravy
+they expect each day at dinner. And what I have undergone in
+consequence," cried Mrs. Todgers, raising her eyes and shaking her head,
+"no one would believe!"
+
+"Just like Mr. Pinch, Mercy!" said Charity. "We have always noticed it
+in him, you remember?"
+
+"Yes, my dear," giggled Mercy, "but we have never given it him, you
+know."
+
+Mr. Pecksniff kept what was called a school for architects, and Tom
+Pinch was one of his students.
+
+"You, my dears, having to deal with your pa's pupils who can't help
+themselves, are able to take your own way," said Mrs. Todgers, "but in a
+boarding-house, where any gentleman may say, any Saturday evening, 'Mrs.
+Todgers, this day week we part, in consequence of the cheese,' it is not
+so easy to preserve a pleasant understanding. Your pa was kind enough,"
+added the good lady, "to invite me to take a ride with you to-day; and I
+think he mentioned that you were going to call upon Miss Pinch. Any
+relation to the gentleman you were speaking of just now, Miss
+Pecksniff?"
+
+"For goodness' sake, Mrs. Todgers," interposed the lively Mercy, "don't
+call him a gentleman. My dear Cherry, Pinch a gentleman! The idea!"
+
+"What a wicked girl you are!" cried Mrs. Todgers, embracing her with
+great affection. "You are quite a joker, I do declare! My dear Miss
+Pecksniff, what a happiness your sister's spirits must be to your pa and
+self!"
+
+"That Pinch is the most hideous, goggle-eyed creature, Mrs. Todgers, in
+existence," resumed Mercy: "quite an ogre. The ugliest, awkwardest,
+frightfullest being, you can imagine. This is his sister, so I leave you
+to suppose what _she_ is. I shall be obliged to laugh outright, I know
+I shall!" cried the charming girl. "I never shall be able to keep my
+face straight. The notion of a Miss Pinch really living at all is
+sufficient to kill one, but to see her--oh my stars!"
+
+Mrs. Todgers laughed immensely at the dear love's humor, and declared
+she was quite afraid of her, that she was. She was so very severe.
+
+"Who is severe?" cried a voice at the door. "There is no such thing as
+severity in our family, I hope!" And then Mr. Pecksniff peeped smilingly
+into the room, and said, "May I come in, Mrs. Todgers?"
+
+Mrs. Todgers almost screamed, for the little door between that room and
+the inner one being wide open, there was a full showing of the
+sofa-bedstead open as a bed, and not closed as a sofa. But she had the
+presence of mind to close it in the twinkling of an eye; and having done
+so, said, though not without confusion, "Oh yes, Mr. Pecksniff, you can
+come in if you please."
+
+"How are we to-day," said Mr. Pecksniff, jocosely; "and what are our
+plans? Are we ready to go and see Tom Pinch's sister? Ha, ha, ha! Poor
+Thomas Pinch!"
+
+"Are we ready," returned Mrs. Todgers, nodding her head in a mysterious
+manner, "to send a favorable reply to Mr. Jinkins' round-robin?[D]
+That's the first question, Mr. Pecksniff."
+
+"Why Mr. Jinkins' robin, my dear madam?" asked Mr. Pecksniff, putting
+one arm round Mercy and the other round Mrs. Todgers, whom he seemed for
+the moment, to mistake for Charity. "Why Mr. Jinkins'?"
+
+"Because he began to get it up, and indeed always takes the lead in the
+house," said Mrs. Todgers, playfully. "That's why, sir."
+
+"Jinkins is a man of superior talents," observed Mr. Pecksniff. "I have
+formed a great regard for Jinkins. I take Jinkins' desire to pay polite
+attention to my daughters as an additional proof of the friendly
+feelings of Jinkins, Mrs. Todgers."
+
+"Well now," returned the lady, "having said so much, you must say the
+rest, Mr. Pecksniff: so tell the dear young ladies all about it."
+
+With these words, she gently drew away from Mr. Pecksniff's grasp, and
+took Miss Charity into her own embrace; though whether she was led to
+this act solely by the affection she had conceived for that young lady,
+or whether it had any reference to a lowering, not to say distinctly
+spiteful expression which had been visible in her face for some
+moments, has never been exactly ascertained. Be this as it may, Mr.
+Pecksniff went on to inform his daughters of the purpose and history of
+the round-robin aforesaid, which was, in brief, that the young men who
+helped to make up the sum and substance of that company, called
+Todgers', desired the honor of their presence at the general table so
+long as they remained in the house, and besought that they would grace
+the board at dinner-time next day, the same being Sunday. He further
+said that, Mrs. Todgers having consented to this invitation, he was
+willing, for his part, to accept it; and so left them that he might
+write his gracious answer, the while they armed themselves with their
+best bonnets for the utter defeat and overthrow of Miss Pinch.
+
+Tom Pinch's sister was governess in a family, a lofty family; perhaps
+the wealthiest brass and copper founder's family known to mankind. They
+lived at Camberwell; in a house so big and fierce that its mere outside,
+like the outside of a giant's castle, struck terror into vulgar minds
+and made bold persons quail. There was a great front gate, with a great
+bell, whose handle was in itself a note of admiration; and a great
+lodge, which, being close to the house, rather spoiled the look-out
+certainly, but made the look-in tremendous. At this entry, a great
+porter kept constant watch and ward; and when he gave the visitor high
+leave to pass, he rang a second great bell, answering to whose notes a
+great footman appeared in due time at the great hall-door with such
+great tags upon his liveried shoulders that he was perpetually
+entangling and hooking himself among the chairs and tables and led a
+life of torment which could scarcely have been surpassed if he had been
+a blue-bottle in a world of cobwebs.
+
+To this mansion, Mr. Pecksniff, accompanied by his daughters and Mrs.
+Todgers, drove gallantly in a one-horse fly. The foregoing ceremonies
+having been all performed, they were ushered into the house, and so, by
+degrees, they got at last into a small room with books in it, where Mr.
+Pinch's sister was at that moment instructing her eldest pupil: to wit,
+a little woman thirteen years old, who had already arrived at such a
+pitch of whalebone and education that she had nothing girlish about her;
+which was a source of great rejoicing to all her relations and friends.
+
+"Visitors for Miss Pinch!" said the footman. He must have been an
+ingenious young man, for he said it very cleverly; with a nice
+distinction in his manner between the cold respect with which he would
+have announced visitors to the family and the warm personal interest
+with which he would have announced visitors to the cook.
+
+"Visitors for Miss Pinch!"
+
+Miss Pinch rose hastily with such tokens of agitation as plainly
+declared that her list of callers was not numerous. At the same time,
+the little pupil became alarmingly upright, and prepared herself to take
+notice of all that might be said and done. For the lady of the
+establishment was curious in the natural history and habits of the
+animal called Governess, and encouraged her daughters to report thereon
+whenever occasion served; which was, in reference to all parties
+concerned, very proper, improving, and pleasant.
+
+It is a melancholy fact, but it must be related, that Mr. Pinch's sister
+was not at all ugly. On the contrary, she had a good face--a very mild
+and friendly face; and a pretty little figure--slight and short, but
+remarkable for its neatness. There was something of her brother, much of
+him indeed, in a certain gentleness of manner, and in her look of timid
+truthfulness; but she was so far from being a fright, or a dowdy, or a
+horror, or anything else predicted by the two Misses Pecksniff, that
+those young ladies naturally regarded her with great indignation,
+feeling that this was by no means what they had come to see.
+
+Miss Mercy, as having the larger share of gayety, bore up the best
+against this disappointment, and carried it off, in outward show at
+least, with a titter; but her sister, not caring to hide her disdain,
+expressed it pretty openly in her looks. As to Mrs. Todgers, she leaned
+on Mr. Pecksniff's arm and preserved a kind of genteel grimness,
+suitable to any state of mind, and involving any shade of opinion.
+
+"Don't be alarmed, Miss Pinch," said Mr. Pecksniff, taking her hand
+condescendingly in one of his, and patting it with the other. "I have
+called to see you, in pursuance of a promise given to your brother,
+Thomas Pinch. My name--compose yourself, Miss Pinch--is Pecksniff."
+
+The good man spoke these words as though he would have said, "You see in
+me, young person, the friend of your race; the patron of your house; the
+preserver of your brother, who is fed with manna daily from my table;
+and in right of whom there is a considerable balance in my favor at
+present standing in the books beyond the sky. But I have no pride, for I
+can afford to do without it!"
+
+The poor girl felt it all as if it had been Gospel Truth. Her brother,
+writing in the fullness of his simple heart, had often told her so, and
+how much more! As Mr. Pecksniff ceased to speak, she hung her head, and
+dropped a tear upon his hand.
+
+"Oh, very well, Miss Pinch!" thought the sharp pupil, "crying before
+strangers as if you didn't like the situation!"
+
+"Thomas is well," said Mr. Pecksniff; "and sends his love and this
+letter. I cannot say, poor fellow, that he will ever become great in our
+profession; but he has the will to do well, which is the next thing to
+having the power; and, therefore, we must bear with him. Eh?"
+
+"I know he has the will, sir," said Tom Pinch's sister, "and I know how
+kindly and thoughtfully you cherish it, for which neither he nor I can
+ever be grateful enough, as we often say in writing to each other. The
+young ladies, too," she added, glancing gratefully at his two daughters.
+"I know how much we owe to them."
+
+"My dears," said Mr. Pecksniff, turning to them with a smile: "Thomas'
+sister is saying something you will be glad to hear, I think."
+
+"We can't take any merit to ourselves, papa!" cried Cherry, as they both
+showed Tom Pinch's sister, with a courtesy, that they would feel obliged
+if she would keep her distance. "Mr. Pinch's being so well provided for
+is owing to you alone, and we can only say how glad we are to hear that
+he is as grateful as he ought to be."
+
+"Oh, very well, Miss Pinch!" thought the pupil again. "Got a grateful
+brother, living on other people's kindness!"
+
+"It was very kind of you," said Tom Pinch's sister, with Tom's own
+simplicity and Tom's own smile, "to come here--very kind indeed: though
+how great a kindness you have done me in gratifying my wish to see you,
+and to thank you with my own lips, you, who make so light of benefits
+conferred, can scarcely think."
+
+"Very grateful; very pleasant; very proper;" murmured Mr. Pecksniff.
+
+"It makes me happy too," said Ruth Pinch, who, now that her first
+surprise was over, had a chatty, cheerful way with her, and a
+single-hearted desire to look upon the best side of everything, which
+was the very moral and image of Tom; "very happy to think that you will
+be able to tell him how more than comfortably I am situated here, and
+how unnecessary it is that he should ever waste a regret on my being
+cast upon my own resources. Dear me! So long as I heard that he was
+happy and he heard that I was," said Tom's sister, "we could both bear,
+without one impatient or complaining thought, a great deal more than
+ever we have had to endure, I am certain." And if ever the plain truth
+were spoken on this occasionally false earth, Tom's sister spoke it when
+she said that.
+
+"Ah!" cried Mr. Pecksniff, whose eyes had in the meantime wandered to
+the pupil; "certainly. And how do _you_ do, my very interesting child?"
+
+"Quite well, I thank you, sir," replied that frosty innocent.
+
+"A sweet face this, my dears," said Mr. Pecksniff, turning to his
+daughters. "A charming manner!"
+
+Both young ladies had been in delight with the child of a wealthy house
+(through whom the nearest road and shortest cut to her parents might be
+supposed to lie) from the first. Mrs. Todgers vowed that anything
+one-quarter so angelic she had never seen. "She wanted but a pair of
+wings, a dear," said that good woman, "to be a young syrup"--meaning,
+possibly, young sylph or seraph.
+
+"If you will give that to your distinguished parents, my amiable little
+friend," said Mr. Pecksniff, producing one of his professional cards,
+"and will say that I and my daughters----"
+
+"And Mrs. Todgers, pa," said Mercy.
+
+"And Mrs. Todgers, of London," added Mr. Pecksniff, "that I, and my
+daughters, and Mrs. Todgers, of London, did not intrude upon them, as
+our object simply was to take some notice of Miss Pinch, whose brother
+is a young man in my employment; but that I could not leave this very
+noble mansion without adding my humble tribute, as an architect, to the
+correctness and elegance of the owner's taste, and to his just
+appreciation of that beautiful art, to the cultivation of which I have
+devoted a life, and to the promotion of whose glory and advancement I
+have sacrificed a--a fortune--I shall be very much obliged to you."
+
+"Missis' compliments to Miss Pinch," said the footman, suddenly
+appearing and speaking in exactly the same key as before, "and begs to
+know wot my young lady is a-learning of just now."
+
+"Oh!" said Mr. Pecksniff, "here is the young man. _He_ will take the
+card. With my compliments, if you please, young man. My dears, we are
+interrupting the studies. Let us go."
+
+One evening, following the visit to Miss Pinch, there was a great bustle
+at Todgers', partly owing to some additional domestic preparations for
+the morrow and partly to the excitement always arising in that house
+from Saturday night, when every gentleman's linen arrived at a different
+hour in his own little bundle, with his private account pinned on the
+outside. Shrill quarrels from time to time arose between Mrs. Todgers
+and the girls in remote back kitchens; and sounds were occasionally
+heard, indicative of small articles of ironmongery and hardware being
+thrown at the boy. It was the custom of that youth on Saturdays to roll
+up his shirt sleeves to his shoulders, and pervade all parts of the
+house in an apron of coarse green baize; moreover, he was more strongly
+tempted on Saturdays than on other days (it being a busy time) to make
+bolts into the neighboring alleys when he answered the door, and there
+to play at leap-frog and other sports with vagrant lads, until pursued
+and brought back by the hair of his head or the lobe of his ear; thus,
+he was quite a conspicuous feature among the peculiar incidents of the
+last day in the week at Todgers'.
+
+He was especially so on this particular Saturday evening, and honored
+the Misses Pecksniff with a deal of notice; seldom passing the door of
+Mrs. Todgers' private room, where they sat alone before the fire,
+without putting in his head and greeting them with some such compliments
+as, "There you are again!" "Ain't it nice?"--and similar humorous
+attentions.
+
+"I say," he whispered, stopping in one of his journeys to and fro,
+"young ladies, there's soup to-morrow. She's a-making it now. Ain't she
+a-putting in the water? Oh! not at all neither!"
+
+In the course of answering another knock, he thrust in his head again:
+
+"I say--there's fowls to-morrow. Not skinny ones. Oh no!"
+
+Presently he called through the keyhole:
+
+"There's a fish to-morrow--just come. Don't eat none of him!" and with
+this spectral warning vanished again.
+
+By-and-by, he returned to lay the cloth for supper. He entertained them
+on this occasion by thrusting the lighted candle into his mouth, after
+the performance of which feat, he went on with his professional duties;
+brightening every knife as he laid it on the table, by breathing on the
+blade and afterwards polishing the same on the apron already mentioned.
+When he had completed his preparations, he grinned at the sisters, and
+expressed his belief that the approaching meal would be of "rather a
+spicy sort."
+
+"Will it be long before it's ready, Bailey?" asked Mercy.
+
+"No," said Bailey, "it _is_ cooked. When I come up she was dodging among
+the tender pieces with a fork, and eating of 'em."
+
+But he had scarcely achieved the utterance of these words, when he
+received a sudden blow on the head, which sent him staggering against
+the wall; and Mrs. Todgers, dish in hand, stood indignantly before him.
+
+"Oh you little villain!" said that lady. "Oh you bad, false boy!"
+
+"No worse than yerself," retorted Bailey, guarding his head with his
+arm. "Ah! Come now! Do that agin, will yer!"
+
+"He's the most dreadful child," said Mrs. Todgers, setting down the
+dish, "I ever had to deal with. The gentlemen spoil him to that extent,
+and teach him such things, that I'm afraid nothing but hanging will ever
+do him any good."
+
+"Won't it!" cried Bailey. "Oh! Yes! Wot do you go a-lowerin' the
+table-beer for, then, and destroying my constitooshun?"
+
+"Go down-stairs, you vicious boy!" said Mrs. Todgers, holding the door
+open. "Do you hear me? Go along!"
+
+After two or three skilful dodges he went, and was seen no more that
+night, save once, when he brought up some tumblers and hot water, and
+much disturbed the two Misses Pecksniff by squinting hideously behind
+the back of the unconscious Mrs. Todgers. Having done this justice to
+his wounded feelings, he retired under-ground; where, in company with a
+swarm of black beetles and a kitchen candle, he employed himself in
+cleaning boots and brushing clothes until the night was far advanced.
+
+Benjamin was supposed to be the real name of this young servant, but he
+was known by a great variety of names. Benjamin, for instance, had been
+converted into Uncle Ben, and that again had been corrupted into Uncle.
+The gentlemen at Todgers' had a merry habit, too, of bestowing upon him,
+for the time being, the name of any notorious criminal or minister; and
+sometimes, when current events were flat, they even sought the pages of
+history for these distinctions; as Mr. Pitt, Young Brownrigg, and the
+like. At the period of which we write, he was generally known among the
+gentlemen as Bailey junior; a name bestowed upon him in
+contradistinction, perhaps, to the Old Bailey prison; and possibly as
+involving the recollection of an unfortunate lady of the same name, who
+perished by her own hand early in life, and has been made famous in a
+song.
+
+The usual Sunday dinner-hour at Todgers' was two o'clock--a suitable
+time, it was considered, for all parties; convenient to Mrs. Todgers, on
+account of the baker's; and convenient to the gentlemen, with reference
+to their afternoon engagements. But on the Sunday which was to introduce
+the two Misses Pecksniff to a full knowledge of Todgers' and its
+society, the dinner was postponed until five, in order that everything
+might be as genteel as the occasion demanded.
+
+When the hour drew nigh, Bailey junior, testifying great excitement,
+appeared in a complete suit of cast-off clothes several sizes too large
+for him, and, in particular, mounted a clean shirt of such extraordinary
+magnitude that one of the gentlemen (remarkable for his ready wit)
+called him "collars" on the spot. At about a quarter before five a
+deputation, consisting of Mr. Jinkins and another gentleman whose name
+was Gander, knocked at the door of Mrs. Todgers' room, and, being
+formally introduced to the two Misses Pecksniff by their parent, who was
+in waiting, besought the honor of showing them up-stairs.
+
+Here the gentlemen were all assembled. There was a general cry of "Hear,
+hear!" and "Bravo, Jink!" when Mr. Jinkins appeared with Charity on his
+arm: which became quite rapturous as Mr. Gander followed, escorting
+Mercy, and Mr. Pecksniff brought up the rear with Mrs. Todgers.
+
+"The wittles is up!"
+
+FOOTNOTE:
+
+[D] A "round-robin" is a letter signed by all the people of a company,
+with the names written in a circle around the letter so that no name
+will be first or last.
+
+
+
+
+XI.
+
+DICK SWIVELLER AND THE MARCHIONESS.
+
+
+RICHARD SWIVELLER, a good-hearted, though somewhat queer young man, the
+clerk of Sampson Brass, a scheming lawyer, often found time hanging
+heavily on his hands; and for the better preservation of his
+cheerfulness therefore, and to prevent his faculties from rusting, he
+provided himself with a cribbage-board and pack of cards, and accustomed
+himself to play at cribbage with a dummy, for twenty, thirty, or
+sometimes even fifty thousand pounds a side, besides many hazardous bets
+to a considerable amount.
+
+As these games were very silently conducted, notwithstanding the
+greatness of the interests involved, Mr. Swiveller, began to think that
+on those evenings when Mr. and Miss Brass were out (and they often went
+out now) he heard a kind of snorting or hard-breathing sound in the
+direction of the door, which it occurred to him, after some thought,
+must proceed from the small servant, who always had a cold from damp
+living. Looking intently that way one night, he plainly distinguished an
+eye gleaming and glistening at the keyhole; and having now no doubt that
+his suspicions were correct, he stole softly to the door and pounced
+upon her before she was aware of his approach.
+
+"Oh! I didn't mean any harm indeed. Upon my word I didn't," cried the
+small servant, struggling like a much larger one. "It's so very dull
+down-stairs. Please don't you tell upon me; please don't."
+
+"Tell upon you!" said Dick. "Do you mean to say you were looking through
+the keyhole for company?"
+
+"Yes, upon my word I was," replied the small servant.
+
+"How long have you been cooling your eye there?" said Dick.
+
+"Oh, ever since you first began to play them cards, and long before."
+
+Vague recollections of several fantastic exercises such as dancing
+around the room, and bowing to imaginary people with which he had
+refreshed himself after the fatigues of business; all of which, no
+doubt, the small servant had seen through the keyhole, made Mr.
+Swiveller feel rather awkward; but he was not very sensitive on such
+points, and recovered himself speedily.
+
+"Well--come in," he said, after a little thought. "Here--sit down, and
+I'll teach you how to play."
+
+"Oh! I durstn't do it," rejoined the small servant. "Miss Sally 'ud kill
+me, if she know'd I came up here."
+
+"Have you got a fire down-stairs?" said Dick.
+
+"A very little one," replied the small servant.
+
+"Miss Sally couldn't kill me if she know'd I went down there, so I'll
+come," said Richard, putting the cards into his pocket. "Why, how thin
+you are! What do you mean by it?"
+
+"It ain't my fault."
+
+"Could you eat any bread and meat?" said Dick, taking down his hat.
+"Yes? Ah! I thought so. Did you ever taste beer?"
+
+"I had a sip of it once," said the small servant.
+
+"Here's a state of things!" cried Mr. Swiveller, raising his eyes to the
+ceiling. "She _never_ tasted it--it can't be tasted in a sip! Why, how
+old are you?"
+
+"I don't know."
+
+Mr. Swiveller opened his eyes very wide and appeared thoughtful for a
+moment; then, bidding the child mind the door until he came back,
+vanished straightway.
+
+Presently he returned, followed by the boy from the public house, who
+bore in one hand a plate of bread and beef and in the other a great pot,
+filled with some very fragrant compound, which sent forth a grateful
+steam, and was indeed choice purl made after a particular rule which Mr.
+Swiveller had given to the landlord at a period when he was deep in his
+books and desirous to win his friendship. Relieving the boy of his
+burden at the door, and charging his little companion to fasten it to
+prevent surprise, Mr. Swiveller followed her into the kitchen.
+
+"There!" said Richard, putting the plate before her. "First of all,
+clear that off, and then you'll see what's next."
+
+The small servant needed no second bidding, and the plate was soon
+empty.
+
+"Next," said Dick, handing the purl, "take a pull at that; but moderate
+your delight, you know, for you're not used to it. Well, is it good?"
+
+"Oh! isn't it?" said the small servant.
+
+Mr. Swiveller appeared gratified beyond all expression by this reply,
+and took a long draught himself, steadfastly regarding his companion
+while he did so. These matters disposed of, he applied himself to
+teaching her the game, which she soon learnt tolerably well, being both
+sharp-witted and cunning.
+
+"Now," said Mr. Swiveller, putting two sixpences into a saucer, and
+trimming the wretched candle, when the cards had been cut and dealt,
+"those are the stakes. If you win, you get 'em all. If I win, I get 'em.
+To make it seem more real and pleasant, I shall call you the
+Marchioness, do you hear?"
+
+The small servant nodded.
+
+"Marchioness," as the reader knows, is a title to a lady of very high
+rank, and such Mr. Swiveller chose to imagine this small servant to be.
+
+"Then, Marchioness," said Mr. Swiveller, "fire away!"
+
+The Marchioness, holding her cards very tight in both hands, considered
+which to play, and Mr. Swiveller, assuming the gay and fashionable air
+which such society required, took another pull at the jug and waited for
+her to lead in the game.
+
+Mr. Swiveller and his partner played several rubbers with varying
+success, until the loss of three sixpences, the gradual sinking of the
+purl, and the striking of ten o'clock, combined to render that gentleman
+mindful of the flight of time, and the wisdom of withdrawing before Mr.
+Sampson and Miss Sally Brass returned.
+
+"With which object in view, Marchioness," said Mr. Swiveller gravely, "I
+shall ask your ladyship's permission to put the board in my pocket, and
+to retire from the presence when I have finished this glass; merely
+observing, Marchioness, that since life like a river is flowing, I care
+not how fast it rolls on, ma'am, on, while such purl on the bank still
+is growing, and such eyes light the waves as they run. Marchioness, your
+health! You will excuse my wearing my hat but the palace is damp, and
+the marble floor is--if I may be allowed the expression--sloppy."
+
+As a protection against this latter inconvenience Mr. Swiveller had been
+sitting for some time with his feet on the hob, in which attitude he now
+gave utterance to these apologetic observations, and slowly sipped the
+last choice drops of nectar.
+
+"The Baron Sampsono Brasso and his fair sister are (you tell me) at the
+Play?" said Mr. Swiveller, leaning his left arm heavily upon the table,
+and raising his voice and his right leg after the manner of a bandit in
+the theater.
+
+The Marchioness nodded.
+
+"Ha!" said Mr. Swiveller with a portentous frown. "'Tis well,
+Marchioness!--but no matter. Some wine there. Ho!" He illustrated these
+melodramatic morsels by handing the glass to himself with great
+humility, receiving it haughtily, drinking from it thirstily, and
+smacking his lips fiercely.
+
+The small servant, who was not so well acquainted with theatrical
+customs as Mr. Swiveller (having indeed never seen a play or heard one
+spoken of, except by some chance through chinks of doors and in other
+forbidden places), was rather alarmed by demonstrations so strange in
+their nature, and showed her concern so plainly in her looks that Mr.
+Swiveller felt it necessary to change his brigand manner for one more
+suitable to private life, as he asked:
+
+"Do they often go where glory waits 'em, and leave you here?"
+
+"Oh, yes; I believe they do," returned the small servant. "Miss Sally's
+such a one-er for that, she is."
+
+"Such a what?" said Dick.
+
+"Such a one-er," returned the Marchioness.
+
+After a moment's reflection, Mr. Swiveller determined to forego his
+responsible duty of setting her right and to suffer her to talk on, as
+it was evident that her tongue was loosened by the purl and her
+opportunities for conversation were not so frequent as to render a
+momentary check of little consequence.
+
+"They sometimes go to see Mr. Quilp," said the small servant with a
+shrewd look; "they go to a good many places, bless you."
+
+"Is Mr. Brass a wunner?" said Dick.
+
+"Not half what Miss Sally is, he isn't," replied the small servant,
+shaking her head. "Bless you, he'd never do anything without her."
+
+"Oh! He wouldn't, wouldn't he?" said Dick.
+
+"Miss Sally keeps him in such order," said the small servant; "he always
+asks her advice, he does; and he catches it sometimes. Bless you, you
+wouldn't believe how much he catches it."
+
+"I suppose," said Dick, "that they consult together a good deal, and
+talk about a great many people--about me, for instance sometimes, eh,
+Marchioness?"
+
+The Marchioness nodded amazingly.
+
+"Do they speak of me in a friendly manner?" said Mr. Swiveller.
+
+The Marchioness changed the motion of her head, which had not yet left
+off nodding, and suddenly began to shake it from side to side so hard as
+to threaten breaking her neck.
+
+"Humph!" Dick muttered. "Would it be any breach of confidence,
+Marchioness, to relate what they say of the humble individual who has
+now the honor to----?"
+
+"Miss Sally says you're a funny chap," replied his friend.
+
+"Well, Marchioness," said Mr. Swiveller, "that's not uncomplimentary.
+Merriment, Marchioness, is not a bad or degrading quality. Old King Cole
+was himself a merry old soul, if we may put any faith in the pages of
+history."
+
+"But she says," pursued his companion, "that you ain't to be trusted."
+
+"Why, really, Marchioness," said Mr. Swiveller thoughtfully; "several
+ladies and gentlemen--not exactly professional persons, but
+tradespeople, ma'am, tradespeople--have made the same remark. The person
+who keeps the hotel over the way inclined strongly to that opinion
+to-night when I ordered him to prepare the banquet. It's a popular
+prejudice, Marchioness; and yet I am sure I don't know why, for I have
+been trusted in my time to a considerable amount, and I can safely say
+that I never forsook my trust until it deserted me--never. Mr. Brass is
+of the same opinion, I suppose?"
+
+His friend nodded again, with a cunning look which seemed to hint that
+Mr. Brass held stronger opinions on the subject than his sister; and
+seeming to recollect herself, added imploringly, "But don't you ever
+tell upon me, or I shall be beat to death."
+
+"Marchioness," said Mr. Swiveller, rising, "the word of a gentleman is
+as good as his bond--sometimes better; as in the present case, where his
+bond might prove but a doubtful sort of security. I am your friend, and
+I hope we shall play many more rubbers together in the same saloon. But,
+Marchioness," added Richard, stopping on his way to the door, and
+wheeling slowly round upon the small servant, who was following with the
+candle, "it occurs to me that you must be in the constant habit of
+airing your eye at keyholes, to know all this."
+
+"I only wanted," replied the trembling Marchioness, "to know where the
+key of the safe was hid; that was all; and I wouldn't have taken much,
+if I had found it--only enough to squench my hunger."
+
+"You didn't find it, then?" said Dick. "But of course you didn't, or
+you'd be plumper. Good-night, Marchioness. Fare thee well, and if
+forever, then forever fare thee well--and put up the chain, Marchioness,
+in case of accidents."
+
+With this parting word, Mr. Swiveller came out from the house; and
+feeling that he had by this time taken quite as much to drink as
+promised to be good for his constitution (purl being a rather strong and
+heady compound), wisely resolved to betake himself to his lodgings, and
+to bed at once. Homeward he went therefore; and his apartments (for he
+still spoke of his one little room as "apartments") being at no great
+distance from the office, he was soon seated in his own bed-chamber,
+where, having pulled off one boot and forgotten the other, he fell into
+deep thought.
+
+"This Marchioness," said Mr. Swiveller, folding his arms, "is a very
+extraordinary person--surrounded by mysteries, ignorant of the taste of
+beer, unacquainted with her own name (which is less remarkable), and
+taking a limited view of society through the keyholes of doors--can
+these things be her destiny, or has some unknown person started an
+opposition to the decrees of fate? It is a most amazing staggerer!"
+
+When his meditations had attained this satisfactory point, he became
+aware of his remaining boot, of which, with great solemnity, he
+proceeded to divest himself; shaking his head with exceeding gravity all
+the time, and sighing deeply.
+
+"These rubbers," said Mr. Swiveller, putting on his nightcap in exactly
+the same style as he wore his hat, "remind me of the matrimonial
+fireside. My old girl, Chegg's wife, plays cribbage; all-fours alike.
+She rings the changes on 'em now. From sport to sport they hurry her, to
+banish her regrets, and when they win a smile from her, they think that
+she forgets--but she don't. By this time, I should say," added Richard,
+getting his left cheek into profile, and looking complacently at the
+reflection of a very little scrap of whisker in the looking-glass; "by
+this time, I should say, the iron has entered into her soul. It serves
+her right."
+
+Mr. Swiveller, it must be said had been at one time somewhat in love
+with a young lady: but she had left his love and married a Mr. Cheggs.
+
+Melting from this stern and harsh into the tender and pathetic mood, Mr.
+Swiveller groaned a little, walked wildly up and down, and even made a
+show of tearing his hair, which, however, he thought better of, and
+wrenched the tassel from his nightcap instead. At last, undressing
+himself with a gloomy resolution, he got into bed.
+
+Some men, in his blighted position, would have taken to drinking; but as
+Mr. Swiveller had taken to that before, he only took, on receiving the
+news that this girl was lost to him forever, to playing the flute;
+thinking, after mature consideration, that it was a good, sound, dismal
+occupation, not only in unison with his own sad thoughts, but tending to
+awaken a fellow-feeling in the bosom, of his neighbors. Following out
+this resolution, he now drew a little table to his bedside, and,
+arranging the light and a small oblong music-book to the best advantage,
+took his flute from its box and began to play most mournfully.
+
+The air was "Away with melancholy"--a composition, which, when it is
+played very slowly on the flute in bed, with the farther disadvantage of
+being performed by a gentleman not fully acquainted with the instrument,
+who repeats one note a great many times before he can find the next, has
+not a lively effect. Yet for half the night, or more, Mr. Swiveller,
+lying sometimes on his back with his eyes upon the ceiling and sometimes
+half out of bed to correct himself by the book, played this unhappy tune
+over and over again; never leaving off, save for a minute or two at a
+time to take breath and talk to himself about the Marchioness and then
+beginning again with renewed vigor. It was not until he had quite
+exhausted his several subjects of meditation, and had breathed into the
+flute the whole sentiment of the purl down to its very dregs, and had
+nearly maddened the people of the house, and at both the next doors, and
+over the way--that he shut up the music-book, extinguished the candle,
+and, finding himself greatly lightened and relieved in his mind, turned
+round and fell asleep.
+
+Dick continued his friendly relations towards the Marchioness, and when
+he fell ill with typhoid fever his little friend nursed him back to
+health. Just after this illness an aunt of his died and left him quite a
+large sum of money, a portion of which he used to educate the
+Marchioness, whom he afterwards married.
+
+
+
+
+XII.
+
+MR. WARDLE'S SERVANT JOE.
+
+
+AN old country gentleman named Wardle had a servant of whom he was very
+proud, not because of the latter's diligence, but because Joe, commonly
+called the "Fat Boy," was a character which could not be matched
+anywhere in the world. At the time when our story opens, Mr. Pickwick of
+London, and three others of his literary club, were traveling in search
+of adventure. With Mr. Pickwick, the founder and head of the Pickwick
+club, were Mr. Tupman, whose great weakness for the ladies brought him
+frequent troubles, Mr. Winkle, whose desire to appear as a sport brought
+much ridicule upon himself, and Mr. Snodgrass, whose poetic nature
+induced him to write many romantic verses which amused his friends and
+all who read them. These four Pickwickians were introduced one day to
+Mr. Wardle, his aged sister Miss Rachel Wardle, and his two daughters,
+Emily and Isabella, as they were looking at some army reviews from their
+coach. Mr. Wardle hospitably asked Mr. Pickwick and his friends to join
+them in the coach.
+
+"Come up here! Mr. Pickwick," said Mr. Wardle, "come along sir. Joe!
+Drat that boy! He's gone to sleep again. Joe, let down the steps and
+open the carriage door. Come ahead, room for two of you inside and one
+outside. Joe, make room for one. Put this gentleman on the box!" Mr.
+Wardle mounted with a little help and the fat boy, where he was, fell
+fast asleep.
+
+One rank of soldiers after another passed, firing over the heads of
+another rank, and when the cannon went off the air resounded with the
+screams of ladies. Mr. Snodgrass actually found it necessary to support
+one of the Misses Wardle with his arm. Their maidenly aunt was in such a
+dreadful state of nervous alarm that Mr. Tupman found that _he_ was
+obliged to put his arm about _her_ waist to keep her up at all. Everyone
+was excited with the exception of the fat boy, and he slept as soundly
+as if the roaring of cannon were his ordinary lullaby.
+
+"Joe! Joe!" called Mr. Wardle. "Drat that boy! He's gone asleep again.
+Pinch him in the leg, if you please. Nothing else wakens him. Thank you.
+Get out the lunch, Joe." The fat boy, who had been effectually aroused
+by Mr. Winkle, proceeded to unpack the hamper with more quickness than
+could have been expected from his previous inactivity.
+
+"Now Joe, knives and forks." The knives and forks were handed in and
+each one was furnished with these useful implements.
+
+"Now Joe, the fowls. Drat that boy! He's gone asleep again. Joe! Joe!"
+Numerous taps on the head with a stick and the fat boy with some
+difficulty was awakened. "Go hand in the eatables." There was something
+in the sound of the last word which aroused him. He jumped up with
+reddened eyes which twinkled behind his mountainous cheeks, and feasted
+upon the food as he unpacked it from the basket.
+
+"Now make haste," said Mr. Wardle, for the fat boy was hanging fondly
+over a chicken which he seemed wholly unable to part with. The boy
+sighed deeply and casting an ardent gaze upon its plumpness, unwillingly
+handed it to his master.
+
+"A very extraordinary boy, that," said Mr. Pickwick. "Does he always
+sleep in this way?"
+
+"Sleep!" said the old gentleman. "He's always sleeping. Goes on errands
+fast asleep and snores as he waits at table."
+
+"How very odd," said Mr. Pickwick.
+
+"Ah! odd indeed," returned the old gentleman. "I'm proud of that boy.
+Wouldn't part with him on any account. He's a natural curiosity. Here,
+Joe, take these things away and open another bottle. Do you hear?" The
+fat boy aroused, opened his eyes, started and finished the piece of pie
+he was in the act of eating when he fell fast asleep, and slowly obeyed
+his master's orders, looking intently upon the remains of the feast as
+he removed the plates and stowed them in the hamper. At last Mr. Wardle
+and his party mounted the coach and prepared to drive off.
+
+"Now mind," he said, as he shook hands with Mr. Pickwick, "we expect to
+see you all to-morrow. You have the address?"
+
+"Manor Farm, Dingley Dell," said Mr. Pickwick, consulting his
+pocket-book.
+
+"That's it," said the old gentleman. "You must come for at least a week.
+If you are traveling to get country life, come to me and I will give you
+plenty of it. Joe! Drat that boy, he's gone to sleep again. Help put in
+the horses." The horses were put in and the driver mounted and the boy
+clambered up by his side. The farewells were exchanged and the carriage
+rolled off. As the Pickwickians turned around to take a last glimpse of
+it the setting sun cast a red gold upon the faces of their entertainers,
+and fell upon the form of the fat boy. His head was sunk upon his
+bosom, and he slumbered again.
+
+After some amusing difficulties, which we have not space to describe
+here, Mr. Pickwick and his friends arrived safely at the country home of
+Mr. Wardle. The time passed very pleasantly.
+
+One day some of the men decided upon a shooting trip, and Mr. Winkle, to
+maintain his reputation as a sport, did not admit that he knew nothing
+about guns. Mr. Pickwick, early in the morning, seeing Mr. Wardle
+carrying a gun, asked what they were going to do.
+
+"Why, your friend and I are going out rook shooting. He's a very good
+shot, isn't he?" said Mr. Wardle.
+
+"I have heard him say he's a capital one," replied Mr. Pickwick, "but I
+never saw him aim at anything."
+
+"Well," said the host, "I wish Mr. Tupman would join us. Joe! Joe!" The
+fat boy who, under the exciting influences of the morning, did not
+appear to be more than three parts and a fraction asleep, emerged from
+the house. "Go up and call Mr. Tupman, and tell him he will find us
+waiting." At last the party started, Mr. Tupman having joined them. Some
+boys, who were with them, discovered a tree with a nest in one of the
+branches, and when all was ready Mr. Wardle was persuaded to shoot
+first. The boys shouted, and shook a branch with a nest on it, and a
+half-a-dozen young rooks, in violent conversation, flew out to ask what
+the matter was. Mr. Wardle leveled his gun and fired; down fell one and
+off flew the others.
+
+"Pick him up, Joe," said the old gentleman. There was a smile upon the
+youth's face as he advanced, for an indistinct vision of rook pie
+floated through his imagination. He laughed as he retired with the bird.
+It was a plump one.
+
+"Now, Mr. Winkle," said the host, reloading his own gun, "fire away."
+Mr. Winkle advanced and raised his gun. Mr. Pickwick and his friends
+crouched involuntarily to escape damage from the heavy fall of birds
+which they felt quite certain would be caused by their friend's skill.
+There was a solemn pause, a shout, a flapping of wings.
+
+Mr. Winkle closed his eyes and fired; there was a scream from an
+individual, not a rook. Mr. Tupman had saved the lives of innumerable
+birds by receiving a portion of the charge in his left arm. Though it
+was a very slight wound, Mr. Tupman made a great fuss about it and
+everyone was horror-stricken. He was partly carried to the house. The
+unmarried aunt uttered a piercing scream, burst into an hysterical
+laugh and fell backwards into the arms of her nieces. She recovered,
+screamed again, laughed again and fainted again.
+
+"Calm yourself," said Mr. Tupman, affected almost to tears by this
+expression of sympathy. "Dear, dear Madam, calm yourself."
+
+"You are not dead?" exclaimed the hysterical lady. "Say you are not
+dead!"
+
+"Don't be a fool, Rachel," said Mr. Winkle. "What the mischief is the
+use of his saying he isn't dead?"
+
+"No! No! I am not," said Mr. Tupman. "I require no assistance but yours.
+Let me lean on your arm," he added in a whisper. Miss Rachel advanced
+and offered her arm. They turned into the breakfast parlor. Mr. Tupman
+gently pressed her hands to his lips and sunk upon the sofa. Presently
+the others left him to her tender mercies. That afternoon Mr. Tupman,
+much affected by the extreme tenderness of Miss Rachel, suggested that
+as he was feeling much better they take a short stroll in the garden.
+There was a bower at the farther end, all honeysuckles and creeping
+plants, and somehow they unconsciously wandered in its direction and sat
+down on a bench within.
+
+"Miss Wardle," said Mr. Tupman, "you are an angel." Miss Rachel blushed
+very becomingly. Much more conversation of this nature followed until
+finally Mr. Tupman proceeded to do what his enthusiastic emotions
+prompted and what were, (for all we know, for we are but little
+acquainted with such matters) what people in such circumstances always
+do. She started, and he, throwing his arms around her neck imprinted
+upon her lips numerous kisses, which, after a proper show of struggling
+and resistance, she received so passively that there is no telling how
+many more Mr. Tupman might have bestowed if the lady had not given a
+very unaffected start and exclaimed: "Mr. Tupman, we are observed! We
+are discovered!"
+
+Mr. Tupman looked around. There was the fat boy perfectly motionless,
+with his large, circular eyes staring into the arbor, but without the
+slightest expression on his face. Mr. Tupman gazed at the fat boy and
+the fat boy stared at him, but the longer Mr. Tupman observed the utter
+vacancy of the fat boy's face, the more convinced he became that he
+either did not know or did not understand anything that had been
+happening. Under this impression he said with great fierceness: "What do
+you want here?"
+
+[Illustration: "Mr. Tupman, We Are Observed!"
+
+                                   Page 240]
+
+"Supper is ready, sir," was the prompt reply.
+
+"Have you just come here?" inquired Mr. Tupman, with a piercing look.
+
+"Just," replied the fat boy. Mr. Tupman looked at him very hard again
+but there was not a wink of his eye or a movement in his face. Mr.
+Tupman took the arm of the spinster aunt and walked toward the house.
+The fat boy followed behind.
+
+"He knows nothing of what has happened," he whispered.
+
+"Nothing," said the spinster aunt. There was a sound behind them as of
+an imperfectly suppressed chuckle. Mr. Tupman turned sharply around.
+
+No, it could not have been the fat boy. There was not a gleam of mirth
+or anything but feeding in his whole visage. "He must have been fast
+asleep," whispered Mr. Tupman.
+
+"I have not the least doubt of it," replied Miss Rachel, and they both
+laughed heartily. Mr. Tupman was wrong. The fat boy for once had not
+been fast asleep. He was awake, wide awake to everything that had
+happened.
+
+The day following, Joe saw his mistress, Mr. Wardle's aged mother,
+sitting in the arbor. Without saying a word he walked up to her, stood
+perfectly still and said nothing.
+
+The old lady was easily frightened; most old ladies are, and her first
+impression was that Joe was about to do her some bodily harm with a view
+of stealing what money she might have with her. She therefore watched
+his motions, or rather lack of motions, with feelings of intense terror,
+which were in no degree lessened by his finally coming close to her and
+shouting in her ear, for she was very deaf, "Missus!"
+
+"Well, Joe," said the trembling old lady, "I am sure I have been a good
+mistress to you." He nodded. "You have always been treated very kindly?"
+He nodded. "You have never had too much to do?" He nodded. "You have
+always had enough to eat?" This last was an appeal to the fat boy's most
+sensitive feelings. He seemed touched as he replied, "I know I has."
+
+"Then what do you want to do now?"
+
+"I wants to make yo' flesh creep," replied the boy. This sounded like a
+very blood-thirsty method of showing one's gratitude and so the old lady
+was as much frightened as before. "What do you think I saw in this very
+arbor last night?" inquired the boy.
+
+"Mercies, what?" screamed the old lady, alarmed at the mysterious
+manner of the corpulent youth.
+
+"A strange gentleman as had his arm around her, a kissin' and huggin'."
+
+"Who, Joe, who? None of the servants, I hope?"
+
+"Worser than that," roared the fat boy in the old lady's ear.
+
+"None of my granddaughters."
+
+"Worser than that," said Joe.
+
+"Worse than that?" said the old lady, who had thought this the extreme
+limit. "Who was it, Joe? I insist upon knowing!"
+
+The fat boy looked cautiously about and having finished his survey
+shouted in the old lady's ear, "Miss Rachel!"
+
+"What?" said the old lady in a shrill tone, "speak louder!"
+
+"Miss Rachel," roared the fat boy.
+
+"My daughter?" The succession of nods which the fat boy gave by way of
+assent could not be doubted. "And she allowed him?" exclaimed the old
+lady. A grin stole over the fat boy's features as he said, "I see her a
+kissin' of him agin!" Joe's voice of necessity had been so loud that
+another party in the garden could not help hearing the entire
+conversation. If they could have seen the expression of the old lady's
+face at this time it is probable that a sudden burst of laughter would
+have betrayed them. Fragments of angry sentences drifted to them through
+the leaves, such as "Without my permission!" "At her time of life!"
+"Might have waited until I was dead," etc. Then they heard the heels of
+the fat boy's foot crunching the gravel as he retired and left the old
+lady alone.
+
+Mr. Tupman would probably have found himself in considerable trouble if
+one of his friends, who had overheard the conversation had not told Mrs.
+Wardle that perhaps Joe had dreamed the entire incident, which did not
+seem altogether improbable. She watched Mr. Tupman at supper that
+evening, but this gentleman, having been warned, paid no attention
+whatever to Miss Rachel, and the old lady was finally persuaded that it
+was all a mistake.
+
+Finally the visit of Mr. Pickwick and his friends came to an end, and it
+was several months before they again partook of Mr. Wardle's
+hospitality. The Pickwickians had arrived at the Inn near Mr. Wardle's
+place for dinner before completing the rest of their journey to Dingley
+Dell. Mr. Pickwick had brought with him several barrels of oysters and
+some special wine as a gift to his host, and he stood examining his
+packages to see that they had all arrived when he felt himself gently
+pulled by the skirts of his coat. Looking around he discovered that the
+individual who used this means of drawing his attention was no other
+than Mr. Wardle's favorite page, the fat boy.
+
+"Aha!" said Mr. Pickwick.
+
+"Ah!" said the fat boy, and as he said it he glanced from the wine to
+the oysters and chuckled joyously. He was fatter than ever.
+
+"Well, you look rosy enough my young friend," said Mr. Pickwick.
+
+"I have been sitting in front of the fire," replied the fat boy, who had
+indeed heated himself to the color of a new chimney pot in the course of
+an hour's nap. "Master sent me over with the cart to carry your luggage
+over to the house." Mr. Pickwick called his man, Sam Weller, to him and
+said, "Help Mr. Wardle's servant to put the packages into the cart and
+then ride on with him. We prefer to walk." Having given this direction
+Mr. Pickwick and his three friends walked briskly away, leaving Mr.
+Weller and the fat boy face to face for the first time. Sam looked at
+the fat boy with great astonishment but without saying a word, and began
+to put the things rapidly upon the cart while Joe stood calmly by and
+seemed to think it a very interesting sort of thing to see Mr. Weller
+working by himself.
+
+"There," said Sam, "everything packed at last. There they are."
+
+"Yes," said the fat boy in a very satisfied tone, "there they are."
+
+"Well, young twenty stone," said Sam. "You're a nice specimen, you are."
+
+"Thankee," said the fat boy.
+
+"You ain't got nothing on your mind as makes you fret yourself, have
+you?" inquired Sam.
+
+"Not as I knows of," replied the boy.
+
+"I should rather have thought, to look at you, that you was a laborin'
+under a disappointed love affair with some young woman," said Sam.
+"Vell, young boa-constrictor," said Sam, "I'm glad to hear it. Do you
+ever drink anythin'?"
+
+"I likes eatin' better," replied the boy.
+
+"Ah!" said Sam. "I should ha' 'sposed that, but I 'spose you were never
+cold with all them elastic fixtures?"
+
+"Was sometimes," replied the boy, "and I likes a drop of something
+that's good."
+
+"Ah! you do, do you," said Sam, "come this way." Then after a short
+interruption they got into the cart.
+
+"You can drive, can you?" said the fat boy.
+
+"I should rather think so," replied Sam.
+
+"Well then," said the fat boy, putting the reins in his hands and
+pointing up a lane, "it's as straight as you can drive. You can't miss
+it." With these words the fat boy laid himself affectionately down by
+the side of the provisions and placing an oyster barrel under his head
+for a pillow, fell asleep instantly.
+
+"Vell," said Sam, "of all the boys ever I set my eyes on--wake up young
+dropsy." But as young dropsy could not be awakened, Sam Weller set
+himself down in front of the cart, started the old horse with a jerk of
+the rein, and jogged steadily on toward Manor Farm.
+
+
+
+
+XIII.
+
+A BRAVE AND HONEST BOY, OLIVER TWIST.
+
+
+LITTLE Oliver Twist was an orphan. He never saw his mother or his
+father. He was born at the workhouse, the home for paupers, where his
+poor heart-broken mother had been taken just a short time before baby
+Oliver came; and, the very night he was born, she was so sick and weak
+she said: "Let me see my child and then I will die." The old nurse said:
+"Nonsense, my dear, you must not think of dying, you have something now
+to live for." The good kind doctor said she must be very brave and she
+might get well. They brought her little baby boy to her, and she hugged
+him in her weak arms and she kissed him on the brow many times and
+cuddled him up as close as her feeble arms could hold him; and then she
+looked at him long and steadily, and a sweet smile came over her face
+and a bright light came into her eyes, and before the smile could pass
+from her lips she died.
+
+The old nurse wept as she took the little baby from its dead mother's
+arms; and the good doctor had to wipe the tears from his eyes, it was
+so very, very sad.
+
+After wrapping the baby in a blanket and laying him in a warm place, the
+old nurse straightened out the limbs of the young mother and folded her
+hands on her breast; and, spreading a white sheet over her still form,
+she called the doctor to look at her--for the nurse and the doctor were
+all who were there. The same sweet smile was on her face, and the doctor
+said as he looked upon her: "Poor, poor girl, she is so beautiful and so
+young! What strange fate has brought her to this poor place? Nurse, take
+good care of the baby, for his mother must have been, at one time, a
+kind and gentle woman."
+
+The next day they took the unknown woman out to the potter's field and
+buried her; and, for nine months, the old nurse at the workhouse took
+care of the baby; though, it is sad to say, this old woman, kind-hearted
+though she was, was at the same time so fond of gin that she often took
+the money, which ought to have bought milk for the baby, to buy drink
+for herself.
+
+Nobody knew what the young mother's name was, and so this baby had no
+name, until, at last, Mr. Bumble, who was one of the parish officers
+who looked after the paupers, came and named him _Oliver Twist_.
+
+When little Oliver was nine months old they took him away from the
+workhouse and carried him to the "Poor Farm," where there were
+twenty-five or thirty other poor children who had no parents. A woman by
+the name of Mrs. Mann had charge of this cottage. The parish gave her an
+allowance of enough money to keep the children in plenty of food and
+clothing; but she starved the little ones to keep the money for herself,
+so that many of them died and others came to take their places. But
+young Oliver was a tough little fellow, and, while he looked very pale
+and thin, he was, otherwise, healthy and hung on to his life.
+
+Mrs. Mann was also very cruel to the children. She would scold and beat
+them and shut them up in the cellar and treat them meanly in many ways
+when no visitors were there. But, when any of the men who had control or
+visitors came around, she would smile and call the children "dear," and
+all sorts of pet names. She told them if any of them should tell on her
+she would beat them; and, furthermore, that they should tell visitors
+that she was very kind and good to them and that they loved her very
+much.
+
+Mr. Bumble was a very mean man, too, as we shall see. They called him
+the _Beadle_, which means he was a sort of sheriff or policeman; and he
+was supposed to look after the people at the workhouse and at the poor
+farm and to wait on the directors who had charge of these places. He had
+the right to punish the boys if they did not mind, and they were all
+afraid of him.
+
+Oliver remained at the cottage on the poor farm until he was nine years
+old, though he was a pale little fellow and did not look to be over
+seven.
+
+On the morning of his birthday, Mrs. Mann had given Oliver and two other
+boys a bad whipping and put them down in a dark coal-cellar. Presently
+she saw Mr. Bumble coming and she told her servant to take the boys out
+and wash them quick, for she did not let Mr. Bumble know she ever
+punished them, and was fearful he might hear them crying in the dark,
+damp place. Mrs. Mann talked very nicely to Mr. Bumble and made him a
+"toddy" (a glass of strong liquor) and kept him busy with her flattering
+and kindness until she knew the boys were washed.
+
+Mr. Bumble told her Oliver Twist was nine years old that day, and the
+Board (which meant the men in charge) had decided they must take him
+away from the farm and carry him back to the workhouse. Mrs. Mann
+pretended to be very sorry, and she went out and brought Oliver in,
+telling him on the way that he must appear very sorry to leave her,
+otherwise she would beat him. So when Oliver was asked if he wanted to
+go, he said he was sorry to leave there. This was not a falsehood, for,
+miserable as the place was, he dearly loved his little companions. They
+were all the people he knew; and he did feel sad, and really wept with
+sorrow as he told them good-by and was led by Mr. Bumble back to the
+workhouse, where he was born and where his mother died nine years ago
+that very day.
+
+When he got back there he found the old nurse who remembered his mother,
+and she told him she was a beautiful sweet woman and how she had kissed
+him and held him in her arms when she died. Night after night little
+Oliver dreamed about his beautiful mother, and she seemed sometimes to
+stand by his bed and to look down upon him with the same beautiful eyes
+and the same sweet smile of which the nurse told him. Every time he had
+the chance he asked questions about her, but the nurse could not tell
+him anything more. She did not even know her name.
+
+Oliver had been at the workhouse only a very short time when Mr. Bumble
+came in and told him he must appear before the Board at once. Now Oliver
+was puzzled at this. He thought a board was a piece of flat wood, and he
+could not imagine why he was to appear before that. But he was too much
+afraid of Mr. Bumble to ask any questions. This gentleman had treated
+him roughly in bringing him to the workhouse; and, now, when he looked a
+little puzzled--for his expressive face always told what was in his
+honest little heart--Mr. Bumble gave him a sharp crack on the head with
+his cane and another rap over the back and told him to wake up and not
+look so sleepy, and to mind to be polite when he went before the Board.
+Oliver could not help tears coming into his eyes as he was pushed along,
+and Mr. Bumble gave him another sharp rap, telling him to hush, and
+ushered him into a room where several stern-looking gentlemen sat at a
+long table. One of them, in a white waistcoat, was particularly
+hard-looking. "Bow to the Board," said Mr. Bumble to Oliver. Oliver
+looked about for a board, and, seeing none, he bowed to the table,
+because it looked more like a board than anything else. The men laughed,
+and the man in the white waistcoat said: "The boy is a fool. I thought
+he was." After other ugly remarks, they told Oliver he was an orphan
+and they had supported him all his life. He ought to be very thankful.
+(And he was, when he remembered how many had been starved to death.)
+"Now," they said, "you are nine years old, and we must put you out to
+learn a trade." They told him he should begin the next morning at six
+o'clock to pick oakum, and work at that until they could get him a
+place.
+
+Oliver was faithful at his work, in which several other boys assisted,
+but oh! so hungry they got, for they were given but one little bowl of
+gruel at a meal--hardly enough for a kitten. So one day the boys said
+they must ask for more; and they "drew straws" to see who should venture
+to do so. It fell to Oliver's lot to do it, and the next meal, when they
+had emptied their bowls, Oliver walked up to the man who helped them and
+said very politely, "Please, sir, may I not have some more? I am very
+hungry." This made the man so angry that he hit Oliver over the head
+with his ladle and called for Mr. Bumble. He came, and when told that
+Oliver had "asked for more," he grabbed him by the collar and took him
+before the Board and made the complaint that he had been very naughty
+and rebellious, telling the circumstance in an unfair and untruthful
+way. The Board was angry at Oliver, and the man in the white waistcoat
+told them again as he had said before. "This boy will be hung sometime.
+We must get rid of him at once." So they offered five pounds, or
+twenty-five dollars to anyone who would take him.
+
+The first man who came was a very mean chimney-sweeper, who had almost
+killed other boys with his vile treatment. The Board agreed to let him
+have Oliver; but, when they took him before the magistrates, Oliver fell
+on his knees and begged them not to let that man have him, and they
+would not. So Oliver was taken back to the workhouse.
+
+The next man who came was Mr. Sowerberry, an undertaker. He was a very
+good man, and the magistrates let him take Oliver along. But he had a
+very cross, stingy wife, and a mean servant-girl by the name of
+Charlotte, and a big overbearing boy by the name of Noah Claypole, whom
+he had taken to raise. Oliver thought he would like Mr. Sowerberry well
+enough, but his heart fell when "the Mrs." met him and called him "boy"
+and a "measly-looking little pauper," and gave him for supper the scraps
+she had put for the dog. But this was so much better than he got at the
+workhouse, he would not complain about the food; and he hoped, by
+faithful work, to win kind treatment.
+
+They made him sleep by himself in the shop among the coffins, and he was
+very much frightened; but he would rather sleep there than with the
+terrible boy, Noah. The first night he dreamed of his beautiful mother,
+and thought again he could see her sitting among those black, fearful
+coffins, with the same sweet smile upon her face. He was awakened the
+next morning by Noah, who told him he had to obey him, and he'd better
+lookout or he'd wear the life out of him. Noah kicked and cuffed Oliver
+several times, but the poor boy was too much used to that to resent it,
+and determined to do his work well.
+
+Mr. Sowerberry found Oliver so good, sensible, and polite that he made
+him his assistant and took him to all the funerals, and occasionally
+gave him a penny. Oliver went into fine houses and saw people and sights
+he had never dreamed of before. Mr. Sowerberry had told him he might
+some day be an undertaker himself; and Oliver worked hard to please his
+master, though Noah and Mrs. Sowerberry and Charlotte grew more unkind
+to him all the time, because "he was put forward," they said, "and Noah
+was kept back." This, of course, made Noah meaner than ever to
+Oliver--determined to endure it all rather than complain, and try to
+win them over after while by being kind. He could have borne any insult
+to himself, but Noah tried the little fellow too far when he attacked
+the name of Oliver's mother, and it brought serious trouble, as we shall
+see.
+
+One day, Oliver and Noah had descended into the kitchen at the usual
+dinner-hour, when, Charlotte being called out of the way, there came a
+few minutes of time, which Noah Claypole, being hungry and vicious,
+considered he could not possibly devote to a worthier purpose than
+aggravating and tantalizing young Oliver Twist.
+
+Intent upon this innocent amusement, Noah put his feet on the
+tablecloth; and pulled Oliver's hair; and twitched his ears; and
+expressed his opinion that he was a "sneak;" and furthermore announced
+his intention of coming to see him hanged, whenever that desirable event
+should take place; and entered upon various other topics of petty
+annoyance, like a malicious and ill-conditioned charity-boy as he was.
+But, none of these taunts producing the desired effect of making Oliver
+cry, Noah began to talk about his mother.
+
+"Work'us," said Noah, "how's your mother?" Noah had given Oliver this
+name because he had come from the workhouse.
+
+"She's dead," replied Oliver; "don't you say anything about her to me!"
+
+Oliver's color rose as he said this; he breathed quickly; and there was
+a curious working of the mouth and nostrils, which Noah thought must be
+the immediate precursor of a violent fit of crying. Under this
+impression he returned to the charge.
+
+"What did she die of, Work'us?" said Noah.
+
+"Of a broken-heart, some of our old nurses told me," replied Oliver:
+more as if he were talking to himself than answering Noah. "I think I
+know what it must be to die of that!"
+
+"Tol de rol lol lol, right fol lairy, Work'us," said Noah, as a tear
+rolled down Oliver's check. "What's set you a sniveling now?"
+
+"Not _you_," replied Oliver, hastily brushing the tear away. "Don't
+think it."
+
+"Oh, not me, eh?" sneered Noah.
+
+"No, not you," replied Oliver, sharply.
+
+"There, that's enough. Don't say anything more to me about her; you'd
+better not!"
+
+"Better not!" exclaimed Noah. "Well! Better not! Work'us, don't be
+impudent. _Your_ mother, too! She was a nice 'un, she was. Oh, Lor'!"
+And here Noah nodded his head expressively and curled his small red
+nose.
+
+"Yer know, Work'us," continued Noah, emboldened by Oliver's silence, and
+speaking in a jeering tone of affected pity. "Yer know, Work'us, it
+can't be helped now; and of course yer couldn't help it then. But yer
+must know, Work'us, yer mother was a regular-down bad 'un."
+
+"What did you say?" inquired Oliver, looking up very quickly.
+
+"A regular right-down bad'un, Work'us," replied Noah, coolly. "And it's
+a great deal better, Work'us, that she died when she did, or else she'd
+have been hard laboring in the jail, or sent out of the country, or
+hung; which is more likely than either, isn't it?"
+
+Crimson with fury, Oliver started up; overthrew the chair and table;
+seized Noah by the throat; shook him, in the violence of his rage, till
+his teeth chattered in his head; and, collecting his whole force into
+one heavy blow, felled him to the ground.
+
+A minute ago, the boy had looked the quiet, mild, dejected creature that
+harsh treatment had made him. But his spirit was roused at last; the
+cruel insult to his dead mother had set his blood on fire. His breast
+heaved; his form was erect; his eye bright and vivid; his whole person
+changed, as he stood glaring over the cowardly tormentor who now lay
+crouching at his feet; and defied him with an energy he had never known
+before.
+
+"He'll murder me!" blubbered Noah. "Charlotte! missis! Here's the new
+boy a-murdering of me! Help! help! Oliver's gone mad! Char--lotte!"
+
+Noah's shouts were responded to by a loud scream from Charlotte and a
+louder from Mrs. Sowerberry; the former of whom rushed into the kitchen
+by a side-door, while the latter paused on the staircase till she was
+quite certain that it was safe to come farther down.
+
+"Oh, you little wretch!" screamed Charlotte, seizing Oliver with her
+utmost force, which was about equal to that of a moderately strong man
+in particularly good training. "Oh, you little un-grate-ful,
+mur-de-rous, hor-rid villain!" And between every syllable Charlotte gave
+Oliver a blow with all her might.
+
+Charlotte's fist was by no means a light one; and Mrs. Sowerberry
+plunged into the kitchen and assisted to hold him with one hand, while
+she scratched his face with the other. In this favorable position of
+affairs, Noah rose from the ground and pommeled him behind.
+
+When they were all wearied out, and could tear and beat no longer, they
+dragged Oliver, struggling and shouting, but nothing daunted, into the
+dust-cellar, and there locked him up. This being done, Mrs. Sowerberry
+sunk into a chair and burst into tears.
+
+"Oh! Charlotte," said Mrs. Sowerberry. "Oh! Charlotte, what a mercy we
+have not all been murdered in our beds!"
+
+"Ah! mercy indeed, ma'am," was the reply. "I only hope this'll teach
+master not to have any more of these dreadful creatures, that are born
+to be murderers and robbers from their very cradle. Poor Noah! he was
+all but killed, ma'am, when I come in."
+
+"Poor fellow!" said Mrs. Sowerberry, looking piteously on the
+charity-boy.
+
+"What's to be done!" exclaimed Mrs. Sowerberry. "Your master's not at
+home; there's not a man in the house, and he'll kick that door down in
+ten minutes." Oliver's vigorous plunges against the door did seem as if
+he would break it.
+
+"Dear, dear! I don't know, ma'am," said Charlotte, "unless we send for
+the police officers."
+
+"Or the millingtary," suggested Noah.
+
+"No, no," said Mrs. Sowerberry: bethinking herself of Oliver's old
+friend. "Run to Mr. Bumble, Noah, and tell him to come here directly,
+and not to lose a minute; never mind your cap! Make haste!"
+
+Noah set off with all his might, and paused not once for breath until he
+reached the workhouse gate.
+
+"Why, what's the matter with the boy!" said the people as Noah rushed
+up.
+
+"Mr. Bumble! Mr. Bumble!" cried Noah, with well-pretended alarm. "Oh,
+Mr. Bumble, sir! Oliver, sir--Oliver has--"
+
+"What? What?" interposed Mr. Bumble, with a gleam of pleasure in his
+steel-like eyes. "Not run away; he hasn't run away, has he, Noah?"
+
+"No, sir, no! Not run away, sir, but he's turned wicious," replied Noah.
+"He tried to murder me, sir; and then he tried to murder Charlotte; and
+then missis. Oh! what dreadful pain it is! Such agony, please, sir!" And
+here Noah writhed and twisted his body into an extensive variety of
+eel-like positions, by which the gentleman's notice was very soon
+attracted; for he had not walked three paces, when he turned angrily
+round and inquired what that young cur was howling for.
+
+"It's a poor boy from the free-school, sir," replied Mr. Bumble, "who
+has been nearly murdered--all but murdered, sir--by young Twist."
+
+"By Jove!" exclaimed the gentleman in the white waistcoat, stopping
+short. "I knew it! I felt from the very first that that terrible young
+savage would come to be hung!"
+
+"He has likewise attempted, sir, to murder the female servant," said Mr.
+Bumble, with a face of ashy paleness.
+
+"And his missis," interposed Noah.
+
+"And his master, too. I think you said, Noah?" added Mr. Bumble.
+
+"No! he's out, or he would have murdered him," replied Noah. "He said he
+wanted to."
+
+"Ah! Said he wanted to, did he, my boy?" inquired the gentleman in the
+white waistcoat.
+
+"Yes, sir. And please, sir," replied Noah, "missis wants to know whether
+Mr. Bumble can spare time to step up there, directly, and flog
+him--'cause master's out."
+
+"Certainly, my boy; certainly," said the gentleman in the white
+waistcoat, smiling benignly and patting Noah's head, which was about
+three inches higher than his own. "You're a good boy--a very good boy.
+Here's a penny for you. Bumble just step up to Sowerberry's with your
+cane, and see what's to be done. Don't spare him, Bumble."
+
+"No, I will not, sir," replied the beadle as he hurried away.
+
+Meantime, Oliver continued to kick, with undiminished vigor, at the
+cellar-door. The accounts of his ferocity, as related by Mrs. Sowerberry
+and Charlotte, were of so startling a nature that Mr. Bumble judged it
+prudent to parley before opening the door. With this view he gave a kick
+at the outside, by way of prelude; and then, putting his mouth to the
+keyhole, said, in a deep and impressive tone:
+
+"Oliver!"
+
+"Come, you let me out!" replied Oliver, from the inside.
+
+"Do you know this here voice, Oliver?" said Mr. Bumble.
+
+"Yes," replied Oliver.
+
+"Ain't you afraid of it, sir? Ain't you a-trembling while I speak, sir?"
+said Mr. Bumble.
+
+"No!" replied Oliver, boldly.
+
+An answer so different from the one he had expected to hear, and was in
+the habit of receiving, staggered Mr. Bumble not a little.
+
+"Oh, you know, Mr. Bumble, he must be mad," said Mrs. Sowerberry. "No
+boy in half his senses could venture to speak so to you."
+
+"It's not madness, ma'am," replied Mr. Bumble, after a few moments of
+deep meditation. "It's meat."
+
+"What?" exclaimed Mrs. Sowerberry.
+
+"Meat, ma'am, meat," replied Bumble, with stern emphasis. "You've
+overfed him, ma'am."
+
+"Dear, dear!" ejaculated Mrs. Sowerberry, piously raising her eyes to
+the kitchen ceiling; "this comes of being liberal!"
+
+The liberality of Mrs. Sowerberry to Oliver had consisted in a bestowal
+upon him of all the dirty odds and ends which nobody else would eat.
+
+"Ah!" said Mr. Bumble, when the lady brought her eyes down to earth
+again; "the only thing that can be done now, that I know of, is to leave
+him in the cellar for a day or so, till he's a little starved down; and
+then to take him out, and keep him on gruel all through his
+apprenticeship. He comes of a bad family. Excitable natures, Mrs.
+Sowerberry! Both the nurse and doctor said that that mother of his made
+her way here, against difficulties and pain that would have killed any
+well-disposed woman, weeks before."
+
+At this point of Mr. Bumble's discourse, Oliver, just hearing enough to
+know that some new allusion was being made to his mother, recommenced
+kicking, with a violence that rendered every other sound inaudible.
+Sowerberry returned at this moment. Oliver's offense having been
+explained to him, with such exaggerations as the ladies thought best
+calculated to rouse his ire, he unlocked the cellar-door in a twinkling,
+and dragged his rebellious apprentice out by the collar.
+
+Oliver's clothes had been torn in the beating he had received; his face
+was bruised and scratched; and his hair scattered over his forehead. The
+angry flush had not disappeared, however; and when he was pulled out of
+his prison, he scowled boldly on Noah, and looked quite undismayed.
+
+"Now, you are a nice young fellow, ain't you?" said Sowerberry, giving
+Oliver a shake and a box on the ear.
+
+"He called my mother names," replied Oliver.
+
+"Well, and what if he did, you little ungrateful wretch?" said Mrs.
+Sowerberry. "She deserved what he said, and worse."
+
+"She didn't," said Oliver.
+
+"She did," said Mrs. Sowerberry.
+
+"It's a lie!" said Oliver.
+
+Mrs. Sowerberry burst into a flood of tears.
+
+This flood of tears left Mr. Sowerberry nothing else to do; so he at
+once gave Oliver a drubbing, which satisfied even Mrs. Sowerberry
+herself. For the rest of the day he was shut up in the backs kitchen, in
+company with a pump and a slice of bread; and, at night, Mrs.
+Sowerberry, after making various remarks outside the door, by no means
+kind to the memory of his mother, looked into the room, and, amidst the
+jeers and pointings of Noah and Charlotte, ordered him up-stairs to his
+dismal bed.
+
+It was not until he was left alone in the silence and stillness of the
+gloomy workshop of the undertaker that Oliver gave way to the feelings
+which the day's treatment may be supposed likely to have awakened in a
+mere child. He had listened to their taunts with a look of contempt; he
+had borne the lash without a cry; for he felt that pride swelling in his
+heart which would have kept down a shriek to the last, though they had
+roasted him alive. But now, when there was none to see or hear him, he
+fell upon his knees on the floor; and, hiding his face in his hands,
+wept bitter tears and prayed in his bleeding heart that God would help
+him to get away from these cruel people. There, upon his knees, Oliver
+determined to run away, and, rising, tied up a few clothes in a
+handkerchief and went to bed.
+
+With the first ray of light that struggled through the crevices in the
+shutters, Oliver arose and unbarred the door. One timid look around--one
+moment's pause of hesitation--he had closed it behind him, and was in
+the open street.
+
+He looked to the right and to the left, uncertain which way to fly. He
+remembered to have seen the wagons, as they went out, toiling up the
+hill. He took the same route; and arriving at a foot-path across the
+fields, which he knew, after some distance, led out again into the road,
+struck into it, and walked quickly on.
+
+Along this same foot-path, Oliver well remembered he had trotted beside
+Mr. Bumble when he first carried him to the workhouse from the farm. His
+heart beat quickly when he bethought himself of this, and he half
+resolved to turn back. He had come a long way though, and should lose a
+great deal of time by doing so. Besides, it was so early that there was
+very little fear of his being seen; so he walked on.
+
+He reached the house. There was no appearance of the people inside
+stirring at that early hour. Oliver stopped, and peeped into the garden.
+A child was weeding one of the little beds; as he stopped, he raised his
+pale face and disclosed the features of one of his former companions.
+Oliver felt glad to see him before he went; for, though younger than
+himself, he had been his little friend and playmate. They had been
+beaten, and starved, and shut up together many and many a time.
+
+"Hush, Dick!" said Oliver, as the boy ran to the gate, and thrust his
+thin arm between the rails to greet him. "Is anyone up?"
+
+"Nobody but me," replied the child.
+
+"You mustn't say you saw me, Dick," said Oliver. "I am running away.
+They beat and ill-use me, Dick; and I am going to seek my fortune some
+long way off. I don't know where. How pale you are!"
+
+"I heard the doctor tell them I was dying," replied the child, with a
+faint smile. "I am very glad to see you, dear; but don't stop, don't
+stop!"
+
+"Yes, yes, I will to say good-by to you," replied Oliver. "I shall see
+you again, Dick. I know I shall. You will be well and happy!"
+
+"I hope so," replied the child. "After I am dead, but not before. I know
+the doctor must be right, Oliver, because I dream so much of heaven and
+angels, and kind faces that I never see when I am awake. Kiss me," said
+the child, climbing up the low gate, and flinging his little arms
+around Oliver's neck: "Good-by, dear! God bless you!"
+
+The blessing was from a young child's lips, but it was the first that
+Oliver had ever heard invoked upon his head; and through the struggles
+and sufferings, and troubles and changes of his after-life, he never
+once forgot it.
+
+Oliver soon got into the high-road. It was eight o'clock now. Though he
+was nearly five miles away from the town, he ran, and hid behind the
+hedges, by turns, till noon, fearing that he might be pursued and
+overtaken. Then he sat down to rest by the side of the mile-stone.
+
+The stone by which he was seated had a sign on it which said that it was
+just seventy miles from that spot to London. The name awakened a new
+train of ideas in the boy's mind, London!--that great large
+place!--nobody--not even Mr. Bumble--could ever find him there! He had
+often heard the old men in the workhouse, too, say that no lad of spirit
+need want in London; and that there were ways of living in that vast
+city which those who had been bred in the country parts had no idea of.
+It was the very place for a homeless boy, who must die in the streets
+unless some-one helped him. As these things passed through his
+thoughts, he jumped upon his feet and again walked forward.
+
+He had made the distance between himself and London less by full four
+miles more, before he thought how much he must undergo ere he could hope
+to reach the place toward which he was going. As this consideration
+forced itself upon him, he slackened his pace a little, and meditated
+upon his means of getting there. He had a crust of bread, a coarse
+shirt, and two pairs of stockings in his bundle. He had a penny too--a
+gift of Sowerberry's after some funeral in which he had acquitted
+himself more than ordinarily well--in his pocket. "A clean shirt,"
+thought Oliver, "is a very comfortable thing; and so are two pairs of
+darned stockings; and so is a penny; but they are small helps to a
+sixty-five miles' walk in winter-time."
+
+Thus day after day the weary but plucky little boy walked on, and early
+on the seventh morning after he had left his native place, Oliver limped
+slowly into the little town of Barnet, and sat down on a doorstep to
+rest. Some few stopped to gaze at Oliver for a moment or two, or turned
+round to stare at him as they hurried by; but none helped him, or
+troubled themselves to inquire how he came there. He had no heart to
+beg. And there he sat for some time when he was roused by observing
+that a boy was watching him most earnestly from the opposite side of the
+way. He took little heed of this at first; but the boy remained in the
+same attitude so long that Oliver raised his head and returned his
+steady look. Upon this, the boy crossed over, and, walking close up to
+Oliver, said:
+
+"Hullo, my covey! What's the row?"
+
+The boy who had spoken to the young wayfarer was about his own age: but
+one of the queerest-looking boys that Oliver had ever seen. He was a
+snub-nosed, flat-browed, common-faced boy enough; and as dirty a youth
+as one would wish to see; but he had about him all the airs and manners
+of a man. He was short for his age; with rather bow-legs, and little,
+sharp, ugly eyes. His hat was stuck on the top of his head so lightly
+that it threatened to fall off every moment. He wore a man's coat, which
+reached nearly to his heels.
+
+"Hullo, my covey! What's the row?" said the stranger.
+
+"I am very hungry and tired," replied Oliver: the tears standing in his
+eyes as he spoke. "I have walked a long way. I have been walking these
+seven days."
+
+"Walking for sivin days!" said the young gentleman. "Oh, I see. Beak's
+order, eh? But," he added, noticing Oliver's look of surprise, "I
+suppose you don't know what a beak is, my flash com-pan-i-on."
+
+Oliver mildly replied that he had always heard a bird's mouth described
+by the word beak.
+
+"My eyes, how green!" exclaimed the young gentleman. "Why, a beak's a
+madgst'rate; and when you walk by a beak's order, it's not straight
+forerd.
+
+"But come," said the young gentleman; "you want grub, and you shall have
+it. Up with you on your pins. There! Now then!"
+
+Assisting Oliver to rise, the young gentleman took him to a near by
+grocery store, where he bought a supply of ready-dressed ham and a
+half-quartern loaf, or, as he himself expressed it, "a fourpenny bran!"
+Taking the bread under his arm, the young gentleman turned into a small
+public-house, and led the way to a tap-room in the rear of the premises.
+Here a pot of beer was brought in by direction of the mysterious youth;
+and Oliver, falling to at his new friend's bidding, made a long and
+hearty meal, during which the strange boy eyed him from time to time
+with great attention.
+
+"Going to London?" said the strange boy, when Oliver had at length
+concluded.
+
+"Yes."
+
+"Got any lodgings?"
+
+"No."
+
+"Money?"
+
+"No."
+
+The strange boy whistled, and put his arms into his pockets as far as
+the big coat-sleeves would let them go.
+
+"Do you live in London?" inquired Oliver.
+
+"Yes, I do, when I'm at home," replied the boy. "I suppose you want some
+place to sleep in to-night, don't you?"
+
+"I do, indeed," answered Oliver. "I have not slept under a roof since I
+left the country."
+
+"Don't fret your eyelids on that score," said the young gentleman. "I've
+got to be in London to-night; and I know a 'spectable old genelman as
+lives there, wot'll give you lodgings for nothink, and never ask for the
+change--that is, if any genelman he knows interduces you. And don't he
+know me? Oh, no! not in the least! By no means. Certainly not!" which
+was his queer way of saying he and the old gentleman were good friends.
+
+This unexpected offer of shelter was too tempting to be resisted,
+especially as it was immediately followed up by the assurance that the
+old gentleman referred to would doubtless provide Oliver with a
+comfortable place, without loss of time. This led to a more friendly and
+free talk, from which Oliver learned that his friend's name was Jack
+Dawkins--among his intimate friends better known as the "Artful
+Dodger"--and that he was a peculiar pet of the elderly gentleman before
+mentioned.
+
+As John Dawkins objected to their entering London before nightfall, it
+was nearly eleven o'clock when they reached the small city street, along
+which the Dodger scudded at a rapid pace, directing Oliver to follow
+close at his heels.
+
+Although Oliver had enough to occupy his attention in keeping sight of
+his leader, he could not help bestowing a few hasty glances on either
+side of the way as he passed along. A dirtier or more wretched place he
+had never seen.
+
+Oliver was just considering whether he hadn't better run away, when they
+reached the bottom of the hill. His conductor, catching him by the arm,
+pushed open the door of a house, and, drawing him into the passage,
+closed it behind them.
+
+"Now, then!" cried a voice from below, in reply to a whistle from the
+Dodger.
+
+"Plummy and slam!" was the reply.
+
+This seemed to be some watchword or signal that all was right; for the
+light of a feeble candle gleamed on the wall at the remote end of the
+passage, and a man's face peeped out from where a balustrade of the old
+kitchen staircase had been broken away.
+
+"There's two of you," said the man, thrusting the candle farther out,
+and shading his eyes with his hand. "Who's the t'other one?"
+
+"A new pal," replied Jack Dawkins, pulling Oliver forward.
+
+"Where did he come from?"
+
+"Greenland. Is Fagin up-stairs?"
+
+"Yes; he's a sortin' the wipes. Up with you!" The candle was drawn back,
+and the face disappeared.
+
+Oliver, groping his way with one hand, and having the other firmly
+grasped by his companion, ascended with much difficulty the dark and
+broken stairs; which his conductor mounted with an ease and expedition
+that showed he was well acquainted with them. He threw open the door of
+a back-room, and drew Oliver in after him.
+
+The walls and ceiling of the room were perfectly black with age and
+dirt. There was a deal table before the fire, upon which were a candle
+stuck in a ginger-beer bottle, two or three pewter-pots, a loaf and
+butter, and a plate. Seated round the table were four or five boys,
+none older than the Dodger, smoking clay pipes and drinking spirits,
+with the air of middle-aged men. These all crowded about their friend as
+he whispered a few words to the Jewish proprietor; and then turned round
+and grinned at Oliver. So did the Jew himself, toasting-fork in hand.
+
+"This is him, Fagin," said Jack Dawkins; "my friend, Oliver Twist."
+
+The Jew grinned, and, making a low bow to Oliver, took him by the hand,
+and hoped he should have the honor of a closer acquaintance. Upon this,
+the young gentlemen with the pipes came round him and shook both his
+hands very hard.
+
+"We are very glad to see you. Oliver, very," said the Jew. "Dodger, take
+off the sausages, and draw a tub near the fire for Oliver. Ah! you're
+a-staring at the pocket-handkerchiefs! eh, my dear! There are a good
+many of 'em, ain't there? We've just looked 'em out, ready for the wash:
+that's all, Oliver--that's all. Ha! ha! ha!"
+
+The latter part of this speech was hailed by a noisy shout from all the
+pupils of the merry old gentleman; in the midst of which they went to
+supper.
+
+Oliver ate his share, and the Jew then mixed him a glass of hot gin and
+water, telling him he must drink it off directly, because another
+gentleman wanted the tumbler. Oliver did as he was desired. Immediately
+afterward he felt himself gently lifted on to one of the sacks; and then
+he sunk into a deep sleep.
+
+It was late next morning when Oliver awoke from a sound, long sleep.
+There was no other person in the room but the old Jew, who was boiling
+some coffee in a saucepan for breakfast, and whistling softly to himself
+as he stirred it round and round with an iron spoon. He would stop every
+now and then to listen when there was the least noise below; and when he
+had satisfied himself, he would go on, whistling and stirring again, as
+before.
+
+Although Oliver had roused himself from sleep, he was not thoroughly
+awake.
+
+Oliver was precisely in this condition. He saw the Jew with his
+half-closed eyes; heard his low whistling; and recognized the sound of
+the spoon grating against the saucepan's sides.
+
+When the coffee was done, the Jew drew the saucepan to the hob, looked
+at Oliver, and called him by his name. He did not answer, and was to all
+appearance asleep.
+
+After satisfying himself upon this head, the Jew stepped gently to the
+door, which he fastened. He then drew forth, as it seemed to Oliver,
+from some trap in the floor, a small box, which he placed carefully on
+the table. His eyes glistened as he raised the lid and looked in.
+Dragging an old chair to the table, he sat down; and took from it a
+magnificent gold watch, sparkling with jewels.
+
+"Aha!" said the Jew, shrugging up his shoulders and distorting every
+feature with a hideous grin. "Clever dogs! Clever dogs! Stanch to the
+last! Never told the old parson where they were. Never peached upon old
+Fagin! And why should they? It wouldn't have loosened the knot, or kept
+the drop up, a minute longer. No, no, no! Fine fellows! Fine fellows!"
+
+With these and other muttered remarks of the like nature, the Jew once
+more laid the watch in its place of safety. At least half a dozen more
+were severally drawn forth from the same box, and looked at with equal
+pleasure; besides rings, bracelets, and other articles of jewelry, of
+such magnificent materials, and costly workmanship, that Oliver had no
+idea even of their names.
+
+As the Jew looked up, his bright dark eyes, which had been staring at
+the jewelry, fell on Oliver's face; the boy's eyes were fixed on his in
+mute curiosity; and although the recognition was only for an instant, it
+was enough to show the old man that he had been observed. He closed the
+lid of the box with a loud crash; and, laying his hand on a bread-knife
+which was on the table, started furiously up.
+
+"What's that?" said the Jew. "What do you watch me for? Why are you
+awake? What have you seen? Speak out boy! Quick--quick! for your life!"
+
+"I wasn't able to sleep any longer, sir," replied Oliver, meekly. "I am
+very sorry if I have disturbed you, sir."
+
+"You were not awake an hour ago?" said the Jew, scowling fiercely.
+
+"No! No, indeed!" replied Oliver.
+
+"Are you sure?" cried the Jew, with a still fiercer look than before,
+and a threatening attitude.
+
+"Upon my word I was not, sir," replied Oliver, earnestly.
+
+"Tush, tush, my dear!" said the Jew, abruptly resuming his old manner,
+and playing with the knife a little, before he laid it down; to make
+Oliver think that he had caught it up in mere sport. "Of course I know
+that, my dear. I only tried to frighten you. You're a brave boy. Ha! ha!
+you're a brave boy, Oliver!" The Jew rubbed his hands with a chuckle,
+but glanced uneasily at the box, notwithstanding.
+
+"Did you see any of these pretty things, my dear?" said the Jew, laying
+his hand upon it after a short pause.
+
+"Yes, sir," replied Oliver.
+
+"Ah!" said the Jew, turning rather pale. "They--they're mine, Oliver: my
+little property. All I have to live upon in my old age. The folks call
+me a miser, my dear. Only a miser; that's all."
+
+Oliver thought the old gentleman must be a decided miser to live in such
+a dirty place, with so many watches; but, thinking that perhaps his
+fondness for the Dodger and the other boys cost him a good deal of
+money, he only looked kindly at the Jew, and asked if he might get up.
+
+"Certainly, my dear, certainly," replied the old gentleman. "There's a
+pitcher of water in the corner by the door. Bring it here, and I'll give
+you a basin to wash in, my dear."
+
+Oliver got up, walked across the room, and stooped for an instant to
+raise the pitcher. When he turned his head the box was gone.
+
+He had scarcely washed himself, and made everything tidy by emptying the
+basin out of the window, agreeably to the Jew's directions, when the
+Dodger returned, accompanied by a very sprightly young friend, whom
+Oliver had seen smoking on the previous night, and who was now formally
+introduced to him as Charley Bates. The four sat down to breakfast on
+the coffee and some hot rolls and ham which the Dodger had brought home
+in the crown of his hat.
+
+"Well," said the Jew, glancing slyly at Oliver, and addressing himself
+to the Dodger, "I hope you've been at work this morning, my dears?"
+
+"Hard," replied the Dodger.
+
+"As nails," added Charley Bates.
+
+"Good boys, good boys!" said the Jew. "What have _you_, Dodger?"
+
+"A couple of pocket-books," replied that young gentleman.
+
+"Lined?" inquired the Jew, with eagerness.
+
+"Pretty well," replied the Dodger, producing two pocket-books.
+
+"Not so heavy as they might be," said the Jew, after looking at the
+insides carefully; "but very neat and nicely made. A good workman, ain't
+he, Oliver?"
+
+"Very, indeed, sir," said Oliver. At which Mr. Charles Bates laughed
+uproariously, very much to the amazement of Oliver, who saw nothing to
+laugh at in anything that had passed.
+
+"And what have you got, my dear?" said Fagin to Charley Bates.
+
+"Wipes," replied Master Bates; at the same time producing four
+pocket-handkerchiefs.
+
+"Well," said the Jew, inspecting them closely; "they're very good ones,
+very. You haven't marked them well, though, Charley; so the marks shall
+be picked out with a needle, and we'll teach Oliver how to do it. Shall
+us, Oliver, eh? Ha! ha! ha!"
+
+"If you please, sir," said Oliver.
+
+"You'd like to be able to make pocket-handkerchiefs as easy as Charley
+Bates, wouldn't you, my dear?" said the Jew.
+
+"Very much, indeed, if you'll teach me, sir," replied Oliver.
+
+Master Bates burst into another laugh.
+
+"He is so jolly green!" said Charley when he recovered, as an apology to
+the company for his impolite behavior.
+
+The Dodger said nothing, but he smoothed Oliver's hair over his eyes,
+and said he'd know better by-and-by.
+
+When the breakfast was cleared away, the merry old gentleman and the two
+boys played at a very curious and uncommon game, which was performed in
+this way: The merry old gentleman, placing a snuff-box in one pocket of
+his trousers, a note-case in the other, and a watch in his waistcoat
+pocket, with a guard-chain round his neck, and sticking a mock-diamond
+pin in his shirt, buttoned his coat tight around him, and putting his
+spectacle-case and handkerchief in his pockets, trotted up and down the
+room with a stick, in imitation of the manner in which old gentlemen
+walk about the streets any hour in the day.
+
+Now during all this time the two boys followed him closely about,
+getting out of his sight, so nimbly, every time he turned round that it
+was impossible to follow their motions. At last the Dodger trod upon his
+toes or ran upon his boot accidentally, while Charley Bates stumbled up
+against him behind; and in that one moment they took from him, with the
+most extraordinary rapidity, snuff-box, note-case, watch-guard, chain,
+shirt-pin, pocket handkerchief, even the spectacle-case. If the old
+gentleman felt a hand in any one of his pockets, he cried out where it
+was, and then the game began all over again.
+
+When this game had been played a great many times, Charley Bates
+expressed his opinion that it was time to pad the hoof. This, it
+occurred to Oliver, must be French for going out; for, directly
+afterward, the Dodger and Charley went away together, having been kindly
+furnished by the amiable old Jew with money to spend.
+
+"There, my dear," said Fagin. "That's a pleasant life, isn't it? They
+have gone out for the day."
+
+"Have they done work, sir?" inquired Oliver.
+
+"Yes," said the Jew; "that is, unless they should unexpectedly come
+across any when they are out; and they won't neglect it, if they do, my
+dear, depend upon it. Make 'em your models, my dear. Make 'em your
+models," tapping the fire-shovel on the hearth to add force to his
+words; "do everything they bid you, and take their advice in all
+matters--especially the Dodger's my dear. He'll be a great man himself,
+and will make you one too, if you take pattern by him. Is my
+handkerchief hanging out of my pocket, my dear?" said the Jew, stopping
+short.
+
+"Yes, sir," said Oliver.
+
+"See if you can take it out, without my feeling it, as you saw them do
+when we were at play this morning."
+
+Oliver held up the bottom of the pocket with one hand, as he had seen
+the Dodger hold it, and drew the handkerchief lightly out with the
+other.
+
+"Is it gone?" cried the Jew.
+
+"Here it is, sir," said Oliver, showing it in his hand.
+
+"You're a clever boy, my dear," said the playful old gentleman, patting
+Oliver on the head approvingly. "I never saw a sharper lad. Here's a
+shilling for you. If you go on in this way, you'll be the greatest man
+of the time. And now come here, and I'll show you how to take the marks
+out of the handkerchief."
+
+Oliver wondered what picking the old gentleman's pocket in play had to
+do with his chances of being a great man. But, thinking that the Jew,
+being so much older must know best, he followed him quietly to the
+table, and was soon deeply at work in his new study.
+
+For many days Oliver remained in the Jew's room, picking the marks out
+of the pocket-handkerchiefs (of which a great number were brought home),
+and sometimes taking part in the game already described, which the two
+boys and the Jew played, regularly, every morning.
+
+At length, one morning, Oliver obtained the permission to go out with
+the boys. There had been no handkerchiefs to work upon for two or three
+days, and the dinners had been rather meager. Perhaps these were reasons
+for the old gentleman giving his assent; but, whether they were or no,
+he told Oliver he might go, and placed him under the joint care of
+Charley Bates and his friend, the Dodger.
+
+The three boys started out; the Dodger with his coat-sleeves tucked up
+and his hat cocked, as usual; Master Bates sauntering along with his
+hands in his pockets; and Oliver between them, wondering where they were
+going, and what they would teach him to make first.
+
+They were just coming from a narrow court not far from an open square,
+which is yet called "The Green," when the Dodger made a sudden stop,
+and, laying his finger on his lip, drew his companions back again, with
+the greatest caution.
+
+"What's the matter?" demanded Oliver.
+
+"Hush!" replied the Dodger. "Do you see that old cove at the
+book-stall?"
+
+"The old gentleman over the way?" said Oliver. "Yes, I see him."
+
+"He'll do," said the Dodger.
+
+"A prime plant," observed Master Charley Bates.
+
+Oliver looked from one to the other with the greatest surprise, but he
+was not permitted to make any inquiries; for the two boys walked
+stealthily across the road and slunk close behind the old gentleman.
+Oliver walked a few paces after them, and, not knowing whether to
+advance or retire, stood looking on in silent amazement.
+
+The old gentleman was a very respectable-looking personage, with a
+powdered head and gold spectacles, as he stood reading a book; and what
+was Oliver's horror and alarm as he stood a few paces off, looking on
+with his eyelids as wide open as they would possibly go, to see the
+Dodger plunge his hand into the old gentleman's pocket and draw from
+thence a handkerchief! To see him hand the same to Charley Bates; and
+finally to behold them both running away round the corner.
+
+In an instant the whole mystery of the handkerchiefs, and the watches,
+and the jewels, and the Jew, rushed upon the boy's mind. He stood, for a
+moment, with the blood so tingling through all his veins from terror
+that he felt as if he were in a burning fire; then, confused and
+frightened, he took to his heels, and, not knowing what he did, made off
+as fast as he could lay his feet to the ground.
+
+This was all done in a minute's space. In the very instant when Oliver
+began to run, the old gentleman, putting his hand to his pocket, and
+missing his handkerchief, turned sharp round. Seeing the boy scudding
+away at such a rapid pace, he very naturally concluded him to be the
+thief; and, shouting "Stop thief!" with all his might, made off after
+him, book in hand.
+
+But the old gentleman was not the only person who raised the
+hue-and-cry. The Dodger and Master Bates, unwilling to attract public
+attention by running down the open street, had merely retired into the
+very first doorway round the corner. They no sooner heard the cry, and
+saw Oliver running, than, guessing exactly how the matter stood, they
+issued forth with great quickness; and shouting "Stop thief!" too,
+joined in the pursuit like good citizens.
+
+Away they ran, pell-mell, helter-skelter, slap-dash; tearing, yelling,
+screaming, knocking down the passengers as they turn the corners,
+rousing up the dogs, and astonishing the fowls; and making streets,
+squares, and courts re-echo with the sound.
+
+At last a burly fellow struck Oliver a terrible blow and he went down
+upon the pavement; and the crowd eagerly gathered round him, each
+newcomer jostling and struggling with the others to catch a glimpse.
+"Stand aside!" "Give him a little air!" "Nonsense! he don't deserve it!"
+"Where's the gentleman?" "Here he is, coming down the street." "Make
+room there for the gentleman!" "Is this the boy, sir?"
+
+Oliver lay covered with mud and dust, and bleeding from the mouth,
+looking wildly round upon the heap of faces that surrounded him, when
+the old gentleman was officiously dragged and pushed into the circle by
+the foremost of the pursuers.
+
+"Yes," said the gentleman, "I am afraid it is the boy."
+
+"Afraid!" murmured the crowd. "That's a good 'un!"
+
+"Poor fellow!" said the gentleman, "he has hurt himself."
+
+"I did that, sir," said a great lubberly fellow, stepping forward; "and
+preciously I cut my knuckle agin his mouth. I stopped him, sir."
+
+The fellow touched his hat with a grin, expecting something for his
+pains; but the old gentleman, eyeing him with an expression of dislike,
+looked anxiously round, as if he contemplated running away himself;
+which it is very possible he might have attempted to do, and thus have
+afforded another chase, had not a police officer (who is generally the
+last person to arrive in such cases) at that moment made his way through
+the crowd, and seized Oliver by the collar.
+
+"Come, get up," said the man, roughly.
+
+"It wasn't me, indeed, sir. Indeed, indeed, it was two other boys," said
+Oliver, clasping his hands passionately and looking round. "They are
+here somewhere."
+
+"Oh no, they ain't," said the officer. He meant this to be ironical, but
+it was true besides; for the Dodger and Charley Bates had filed off down
+the first convenient court they came to. "Come, get up!"
+
+"Don't hurt him," said the old gentleman, compassionately.
+
+"Oh no, I won't hurt him," replied the officer, tearing his jacket half
+off his back, in proof thereof. "Come, I know you; it won't do. Will you
+stand upon your legs, you young devil?"
+
+Oliver, who could hardly stand, made a shift to raise himself on his
+feet, and was at once lugged along the streets by the jacket-collar at a
+rapid pace. The gentleman walked on with them by the officer's side.
+
+At last they came to a place called Mutton Hill. Here he was led beneath
+a low archway, and up a dirty court, where they saw a stout man with a
+bunch of whiskers on his face and a bunch of keys in his hand.
+
+"What's the matter now?" said the man carelessly.
+
+"A young fogle-hunter," replied the officer who had Oliver in charge.
+
+"Are you the party that's been robbed, sir?" inquired the man with the
+keys.
+
+"Yes, I am," replied the old gentleman; "but I am not sure that this boy
+actually took the handkerchief. I would rather not press the case."
+
+"Must go before the magistrate now, sir," replied the man. "His worship
+will be disengaged in half a minute. Now, young gallows!"
+
+This was an invitation for Oliver to enter through a door which he
+unlocked as he spoke, and which led into a stone cell. Here he was
+searched, and, nothing being found upon him, locked up.
+
+The old gentleman looked almost as unhappy as Oliver when the key grated
+in the lock.
+
+At last this gentleman, Mr. Brownlow, was summoned before the
+magistrate--a very mean man, whose name was Fang. Oliver was brought in,
+and the magistrate, after using very abusive language to Mr. Brownlow,
+had him sworn, but would not let him tell his story. He flew into a rage
+and told the policeman to tell what happened.
+
+The policeman, with becoming humility, related how he had taken the boy;
+how he had searched Oliver, and found nothing on his person; and how
+that was all he knew about it.
+
+"Are there any witnesses?" inquired Mr. Fang.
+
+"None, your worship," replied the policeman.
+
+Mr. Fang sat silent for some minutes, and then, turning round to Mr.
+Brownlow, said in a towering passion:
+
+"Do you mean to state what your complaint against this boy is, man, or
+do you not? You have been sworn. Now, if you stand there, refusing to
+give evidence, I'll punish you for disrespect to the bench."
+
+With many interruptions, and repeated insults, Mr. Brownlow contrived to
+state his case; observing that, in the surprise of the moment, he had
+run after the boy because he saw him running away.
+
+"He has been hurt already," said the old gentleman, in conclusion. "And
+I fear," he added, with great energy, looking toward the bar, "I really
+fear that he is ill."
+
+"Oh! yes, I dare say!" said Mr. Fang, with a sneer. "Come, none of your
+tricks here, you young vagabond; they won't do. What's your name?"
+
+Oliver tried to reply, but his tongue failed him. He was deadly pale;
+and the whole place seemed turning round and round.
+
+"What's your name, you hardened scoundrel?" demanded Mr. Fang.
+
+At this point of the inquiry, Oliver raised his head, and, looking
+round with imploring eyes, asked feebly for a drink of water.
+
+"Stuff and nonsense!" said Fang; "don't try to make a fool of me."
+
+"I think he really is ill, your worship," said the officer.
+
+"I know better," said Mr. Fang.
+
+"Take care of him, officer," said the old gentleman, raising his hands
+instinctively; "he'll fall down."
+
+"Stand away, officer," cried Fang; "let him, if he likes."
+
+Oliver availed himself of the kind permission, and fell to the floor in
+a fainting fit. The men in the office looked at each other, but no one
+dared to stir.
+
+"I knew he was shamming," said Fang, as if this were enough proof of the
+fact. "Let him lie there; he'll soon be tired of that."
+
+"How do you propose to deal with the case, sir?" inquired the clerk in a
+low voice.
+
+"Summarily," replied Mr. Fang. "He stands committed for three
+months--hard labor, of course. Clear the office."
+
+The door was opened for this purpose, and a couple of men were preparing
+to carry the insensible boy to his cell, when an elderly man of decent
+but poor appearance, clad in an old suit of black, rushed in.
+
+"Stop! stop! Don't take him away! For heaven's sake stop a moment!"
+cried the newcomer, breathless with haste.
+
+"What is this? Who is this? Turn this man out. Clear the office," cried
+Mr. Fang.
+
+"I _will_ speak," cried the man; "I will not be turned out. I saw it
+all. I keep the book-stall. I demand to be sworn. I will not be put
+down. Mr. Fang, you must hear me. You must not refuse, sir."
+
+The man was right. His manner was determined; and the matter was growing
+rather too serious to be hushed up.
+
+"Swear the man," growled Mr. Fang, with a very ill grace. "Now, man,
+what have you to say?"
+
+"This," said the man: "I saw three boys--two two others and the prisoner
+here--loitering on the opposite side of the way, when this gentleman was
+reading. The robbery was committed by another boy. I saw it done; and I
+saw this boy was perfectly amazed and stupefied by it."
+
+"Why didn't you come here before?" said Fang, after a pause.
+
+"I hadn't a soul to mind the shop," replied the man. "Everybody who
+could have helped me had joined in the pursuit. I could get nobody till
+five minutes ago; and I have run here all the way to speak the truth."
+
+"The boy is discharged. Clear the office!" shouted the angry magistrate.
+
+The command was obeyed; and as Oliver was taken out he fainted away
+again in the yard, and lay with his face a deadly white and a cold
+tremble convulsing his frame.
+
+"Poor boy! poor boy!" said Mr. Brownlow, bending over him. "Call a
+coach, somebody, pray. Directly!"
+
+A coach was obtained, and Oliver, having been carefully laid on one
+seat, the old gentleman got in and sat himself on the other.
+
+"May I go with you?" said the book-stall keeper, looking in.
+
+"Bless me, yes, my dear sir," said Mr. Brownlow quickly. "I forgot you.
+Dear, dear! I have this unhappy book still! Jump in. Poor fellow! No
+time to lose."
+
+The book-stall keeper got into the coach, and it rattled away. It
+stopped at length before a neat house, in a quiet shady street. Here a
+bed was prepared, without loss of time, in which Mr. Brownlow saw his
+young charge carefully and comfortably laid; and here he was tended
+with a kindness and solicitude that knew no bounds.
+
+At last the sick boy began to recover, and one day Mr. Brownlow came to
+see him. You may imagine how happy Oliver was to see his good friend;
+but he was no more delighted than was Mr. Brownlow. The old gentleman
+came to spend a short time with him every day; and, when he grew
+stronger, Oliver went up to the learned gentleman's study and talked
+with him by the hour and was astonished at the books he saw, and which
+Mr. Brownlow told him to look at and read as much as he liked.
+
+Oliver was soon well, and no thought was in Mr. Brownlow's mind but that
+he should keep him, and raise him and educate him to be a splendid man;
+for no father loves his own son better than Mr. Brownlow had come to
+love Oliver.
+
+Now, I know, you want to ask me what became of Oliver Twist. But I
+cannot tell you here. Let us leave him in this beautiful home of good
+Mr. Brownlow; and, if you want to read the rest of his wonderful story,
+get Dickens' big book called _Oliver Twist_, and read it there. There
+were many surprises and much trouble yet in store for Oliver, but he was
+always noble, honest, and brave.
+
+
+
+
+------THE------
+
+Famous Standard Juveniles
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+          Published by
+          THE JOHN C. WINSTON CO.
+          Philadelphia
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+EDWARD S. ELLIS
+
+
+Edward S. Ellis, the popular writer of boys' books, is a native of
+Ohio, where he was born somewhat more than a half-century ago. His
+father was a famous hunter and rifle shot, and it was doubtless his
+exploits and those of his associates, with their tales of adventure
+which gave the son his taste for the breezy backwoods and for depicting
+the stirring life of the early settlers on the frontier.
+
+Mr. Ellis began writing at an early age and his work was acceptable from
+the first. His parents removed to New Jersey while he was a boy and he
+was graduated from the State Normal School and became a member of the
+faculty while still in his teens. He was afterward principal of the
+Trenton High School, a trustee and then superintendent of schools. By
+that time his services as a writer had become so pronounced that he gave
+his entire attention to literature. He was an exceptionally successful
+teacher and wrote a number of text-books for schools, all of which met
+with high favor. For these and his historical productions, Princeton
+College conferred upon him the degree of Master of Arts.
+
+The high moral character, the clean, manly tendencies and the admirable
+literary style of Mr. Ellis' stories have made him as popular on the
+other side of the Atlantic as in this country. A leading paper remarked
+some time since, that no mother need hesitate to place in the hands of
+her boy any book written by Mr. Ellis. They are found in the leading
+Sunday-school libraries, where, as may well be believed, they are in
+wide demand and do much good by their sound, wholesome lessons which
+render them as acceptable to parents as to their children. Nearly all of
+the Ellis books published by The John C. Winston Company are reissued in
+London, and many have been translated into other languages. Mr. Ellis is
+a writer of varied accomplishments, and, in addition to his stories, is
+the author of historical works, of a number of pieces of popular music,
+and has made several valuable inventions. Mr. Ellis is in the prime of
+his mental and physical powers, and great as have been the merits of his
+past achievements, there is reason to look for more brilliant
+productions from his pen in the near future.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+          DEERFOOT SERIES
+
+          3 vols.        By EDWARD S. ELLIS        $3.00
+
+          Hunters of the Ozark
+          The Last War Trail
+          Camp in the Mountains
+
+
+          LOG CABIN SERIES
+
+          3 vols.        By EDWARD S. ELLIS        $3.00
+
+          Lost Trail
+          Footprints in the Forest
+          Camp-Fire and Wigwam
+
+
+          BOY PIONEER SERIES
+
+          3 vols.        By EDWARD S. ELLIS        $3.00
+
+          Ned in the Block-House
+          Ned on the River
+          Ned in the Woods
+
+
+          THE NORTHWEST SERIES
+
+          3 vols.        By EDWARD S. ELLIS        $3.00
+
+          Two Boys in Wyoming
+          Cowmen and Rustlers
+          A Strange Craft and its Wonderful Voyage
+
+
+          BOONE AND KENTON SERIES
+
+          3 vols.        By EDWARD S. ELLIS        $3.00
+
+          Shod with Silence
+          In the Days of the Pioneers
+          Phantom of the River
+
+
+          WAR CHIEF SERIES
+
+          3 vols.        By EDWARD S. ELLIS        $3.00
+
+          Red Eagle
+          Blazing Arrow
+          Iron Heart, War Chief of the Iroquois
+
+
+          THE NEW DEERFOOT SERIES
+
+          3 vols.      By EDWARD S. ELLIS      $3.00
+
+          Deerfoot in the Forest
+          Deerfoot on the Prairie
+          Deerfoot in the Mountains
+
+
+          TRUE GRIT SERIES
+
+          3 vols.       By EDWARD S. ELLIS     $3.00
+
+          Jim and Joe
+          Dorsey, the Young Inventor
+          Secret of Coffin Island
+
+
+          GREAT AMERICAN SERIES
+
+          2 vols.      By EDWARD S. ELLIS      $2.00
+
+          Teddy and Towser; or, Early Days in California
+          Up the Forked River
+
+
+          COLONIAL SERIES
+
+          3 vols.      By EDWARD S. ELLIS      $3.00
+
+          An American King
+          The Cromwell of Virginia
+          The Last Emperor of the Old Dominion
+
+
+          FOREIGN ADVENTURE SERIES
+
+          3 vols.      By EDWARD S. ELLIS      $3.00
+
+          Lost in the Forbidden Land
+          River and Jungle
+          The Hunt of the White Elephant
+
+
+          PADDLE YOUR OWN CANOE SERIES
+
+          3 vols.      By EDWARD S. ELLIS       $3.00
+
+          The Forest Messengers
+          The Mountain Star
+          Queen of the Clouds
+
+
+          THE ARIZONA SERIES
+
+          3 vols.      By EDWARD S. ELLIS      $3.00
+
+          Off the Reservation
+          Trailing Geronimo
+          The Round Up
+
+
+          OVERLAND SERIES
+
+          2 vols.      By EDWARD S. ELLIS      $2.00
+
+          Alden, the Pony Express Rider
+          Alden Among the Indians
+
+
+          THE CATAMOUNT CAMP SERIES
+
+          2 vols.      By EDWARD S. ELLIS      $2.00
+
+          Captain of the Camp
+          Catamount Camp
+
+
+          THE FLYING BOYS SERIES
+
+          2 vols.      By EDWARD S. ELLIS      $2.00
+
+          The Flying Boys in the Sky
+          The Flying Boys to the Rescue
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+Sent Postpaid on Receipt of Price
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+          THE JOHN C. WINSTON CO., _Publishers_
+          WINSTON BUILDING        PHILADELPHIA
+
+
+
+
+EVERY CHILD'S LIBRARY
+
+
+Books "That Every Child Can Read" for Four Reasons:
+
+          1 Because the subjects have all proved their
+            lasting popularity.
+
+          2 Because of the simple language in which they are
+            written.
+
+          3 Because they have been carefully edited, and
+            anything that might prove objectionable for
+            children's reading has been eliminated.
+
+          4 Because of their accuracy of statement.
+
+This Series of Books comprises subjects that appeal to all young
+people. Besides the historical subjects that are necessary to the
+education of children, it also contains standard books written in
+language that children can read and understand.
+
+Carefully Edited. Each work is carefully edited by Rev. Jesse Lyman
+Hurlbut, D.D., to make sure that the style is simple and suitable for
+Young Readers, and to eliminate anything which might be objectionable.
+Dr. Hurlbut's large and varied experience in the instruction of young
+people, and in the preparation of literature in language that is easily
+understood, makes this series of books a welcome addition to libraries,
+reading circles, schools and home.
+
+Issued in uniform style of binding.
+
+          Cloth, 12mo. Illustrated. Price, 75 cents
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+LIST OF TITLES
+
+          DICKENS' STORIES ABOUT CHILDREN. Every Child can read
+          LIVES OF OUR PRESIDENTS. Every Child can read
+          LEATHER STOCKING TALES. Every Child can read
+          PILGRIM'S PROGRESS. Every Child can read
+          STORIES ABOUT CHILDREN OF ALL NATIONS. Every Child can read
+          STORIES OF GREAT AMERICANS. Every Child can read
+          STORIES OF OUR NAVAL HEROES. Every Child can read
+          STORY OF JESUS, THE. Every Child can read
+          STORY OF OUR COUNTRY, THE. Every Child can read
+
+(Others in preparation)
+
+CATALOGUE MAILED ON APPLICATION
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+          THE JOHN C. WINSTON CO., _Publishers_
+          WINSTON BUILDING      PHILADELPHIA
+
+
+
+
+HURLBUT'S STORY OF THE BIBLE
+
+***FROM GENESIS TO REVELATION
+
+BY REV. JESSE LYMAN HURLBUT, D.D.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+A BOOK FOR OLD AND YOUNG
+
+Told in language that interests both Old and Young. "Supersedes all
+other books of the kind." Recommended by all Denominations for its
+freshness and accuracy; for its freedom from doctrinal discussion; for
+its simplicity of language; for its numerous and appropriate
+illustrations; as the best work on the subject. The greatest aid to
+Parents, Teachers and all who wish the Bible Story in a simplified form.
+168 separate stories, each complete in itself, yet forming a continuous
+narrative of the Bible. 762 pages, nearly 300 half-tone illustrations, 8
+in colors. Octavo.
+
+THE FLEXIBLE MOROCCO STYLE
+
+"HURLBUT'S STORY OF THE BIBLE" can be obtained in FLEXIBLE MOROCCO
+BINDING with red under gold edges. This new binding will give the work
+a wider use, for in this convenient form the objection to carrying the
+ordinary bound book is entirely overcome. This convenient style also
+contains "HURLBUT'S BIBLE LESSONS FOR BOYS AND GIRLS," a system of
+questions and answers, based on the stories in the book, by which the
+Old Testament story can be taught in a year, and the New Testament story
+can be taught in a year. This edition also contains 17 Maps printed in
+colors, covering the geography of the Old Testament and of the New
+Testament.
+
+Those additional features are not included in the Cloth bound book, but
+are only to be obtained in the new Flexible Morocco style.
+
+          Cloth, extra                    Price, $1.50
+
+          FLEXIBLE MOROCCO STYLE. Bound in FRENCH SEAL,
+          round corners, red under gold edges, extra grained
+          lining, specially sewed to produce absolute
+          flexibility and great durability. Each book packed
+          in neat and substantial box
+
+          Price                                       $3.75
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+          THE JOHN C. WINSTON CO., _Publishers_
+          WINSTON BUILDING         PHILADELPHIA
+
+          Critics uniformly agree that parents can safely
+          place in the hands of boys and girls any book
+          written by Edward S. Ellis
+
+
+
+
+The "FLYING BOYS" Series
+
+By EDWARD S. ELLIS
+
+          Author of the Renowned "Deerfoot" Books, and 100
+          other famous volumes for young people
+
+
+During his trip abroad last summer, Mr. Ellis became intensely
+interested in aeroplane and airship flying in France, and this new series
+from his pen is the visible result of what he would call a "vacation."
+He has made a study of the science and art of aeronautics, and these
+books will give boys just the information they want about this marvelous
+triumph of man.
+
+          First Volume: THE FLYING BOYS IN THE SKY
+          Second Volume: THE FLYING BOYS TO THE RESCUE
+
+The stories are timely and full of interest and stirring events.
+Handsomely illustrated and with appropriate cover design.
+
+          Price        Per volume, 60 cents.      Postpaid
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+          This series will appeal to up-to-date American
+          Girls. The subsequent volumes will carry the Ranch
+          Girls through numerous ups and downs of fortune
+          and adventures in America and Europe
+
+          THE "RANCH GIRLS" SERIES IS A
+          NEW LINE OF BOOKS FOR GIRLS
+
+
+----THE----
+
+Ranch Girls at Rainbow Lodge
+
+          By MARGARET VANDERCOOK
+
+This first volume of the new RANCH GIRLS SERIES, will stir up the envy
+of all girl readers to a life of healthy exercise and honest
+helpfulness. The Ranch Girls undertake the management of a large ranch
+in a western state, and after many difficulties make it pay and give
+them a good living. They are jolly, healthy, attractive girls, who have
+the best kind of a time, and the young readers will enjoy the book as
+much as any of them. The first volume of the Ranch Girls Series will be
+followed by other titles carrying the Ranch Girls through numerous ups
+and downs of fortune and adventures in America and Europe.
+
+          Attractive cover design. Excellent paper. Illustrated. 12mo.
+          Cloth.      Price, Per volume, 60 cents.      Postpaid
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+          THE JOHN C. WINSTON CO., _Publishers_
+          WINSTON BUILDING       PHILADELPHIA
+
+
+
+
+
+NEW EDITION OF ALGER'S GREATEST SET OF BOOKS
+
+
+----THE----
+
+Famous Ragged Dick Series
+
+          NEW TYPE-SET PLATES MADE IN 1910
+
+In response to a demand for a popular-priced edition of this series of
+books--the most famous set ever written by Horatio Alger, Jr.--this
+edition has been prepared.
+
+Each volume is set in large, new type, printed on an excellent quality
+of paper, and bound in uniform style, having an entirely new and
+appropriate cover design, with heavy gold stamp.
+
+As is well known, the books in this series are copyrighted, and
+consequently none of them will be found in any other publisher's list.
+
+          RAGGED DICK SERIES.   By Horatio Alger, Jr.   6 vols.
+
+          RAGGED DICK
+          FAME AND FORTUNE
+          MARK, THE MATCH BOY
+          ROUGH AND READY
+          BEN, THE LUGGAGE BOY
+          RUFUS AND ROSE
+
+          Each set is packed in a handsome box
+          12mo.    Cloth
+          Sold only in sets.      Price per set, $3.60.   Postpaid
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+
+
+RECOMMENDED BY REAR ADMIRAL MELVILLE, WHO COMMANDED THREE EXPEDITIONS
+TO THE ARCTIC REGIONS
+
+
+----THE----
+
+New Popular Science Series
+
+          BY PROF. EDWIN J. HOUSTON
+
+THE NORTH POLE SERIES. By Prof. Edwin J. Houston. This is an entirely
+new series, which opens a new field in Juvenile Literature. Dr. Houston
+has spent a lifetime in teaching boys the principles of physical and
+scientific phenomena and knows how to talk and write for them in a way
+that is most attractive. In the reading of these stories the most
+accurate scientific information will be absorbed.
+
+          THE SEARCH FOR THE NORTH POLE
+          THE DISCOVERY OF THE NORTH POLE
+          CAST AWAY AT THE NORTH POLE
+
+Handsomely bound. The volumes, 12mo. in size, are bound in Extra
+English Cloth, and are attractively stamped in colors and full gold
+titles. Sold separately or in sets, boxed.
+
+          Price      $1.00 per volume.      Postpaid
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+          THE JOHN C. WINSTON CO., _Publishers_
+          WINSTON BUILDING     PHILADELPHIA
+
+
+
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+
+
+
+Transcriber's note:
+
+Obvious punctuation errors were corrected.
+
+Page 156, repeated word "were" removed (were both great personages)
+
+Page 197, "though" changed to "through" (yourself through the grating)
+
+Page 237, "Wardle" changed to "Winkle" (Winkle, to maintain his)
+
+Page 248, "X.III" changed to "XIII."
+
+Page 276, "on" changed to "of" (There's two of you)
+
+
+
+***END OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK DICKENS' STORIES ABOUT CHILDREN
+EVERY CHILD CAN READ***
+
+
+******* This file should be named 32241.txt or 32241.zip *******
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