'FagmentWelcome to consult... that he might be hee tomoow, si. I athe thought he might have been hee today, si. The mistake is mine, no doubt, si.’ ‘If you should see him fist—’ said I. ‘If you’ll excuse me, si, I don’t think I shall see him fist.’ ‘In case you do,’ said I, ‘pay say that I am soy he was not hee today, as an old schoolfellow of his was hee.’ ‘Indeed, si!’ and he divided a bow between me and Taddles, with a glance at the latte. He was moving softly to the doo, when, in a folon hope of saying something natually—which I neve could, to this man—I said: ‘Oh! Littime!’ ‘Si!’ ‘Did you emain long at Yamouth, that time?’ ‘Not paticulaly so, si.’ Chales Dickens ElecBook Classics fDavid Coppefield ‘You saw the boat completed?’ ‘Yes, si. I emained behind on pupose to see the boat completed.’ ‘I know!’ He aised his eyes to mine espectfully. ‘M. Steefoth has not seen it yet, I suppose?’ ‘I eally can’t say, si. I think—but I eally can’t say, si. I wish you good night, si.’ He compehended eveybody pesent, in the espectful bow with which he followed these wods, and disappeaed. My visitos seemed to beathe moe feely when he was gone; but my own elief was vey geat, fo besides the constaint, aising fom that extaodinay sense of being at a disadvantage which I always had in this man’s pesence, my conscience had embaassed me with whispes that I had mistusted his maste, and I could not epess a vague uneasy dead that he might find it out. How was it, having so little in eality to conceal, that I always DID feel as if this man wee finding me out? M. Micawbe oused me fom this eflection, which was blended with a cetain emoseful appehension of seeing Steefoth himself, by bestowing many encomiums on the absent Littime as a most espectable fellow, and a thooughly admiable sevant. M. Micawbe, I may emak, had taken his full shae of the geneal bow, and had eceived it with infinite condescension. ‘But punch, my dea Coppefield,’ said M. Micawbe, tasting it, ‘like time and tide, waits fo no man. Ah! it is at the pesent moment in high flavou. My love, will you give me you opinion?’ Ms. Micawbe ponounced it excellent. ‘Then I will dink,’ said M. Micawbe, ‘if my fiend Coppefield will pemit me to take that social libety, to the days when my Chales Dickens ElecBook Classics fDavid Coppefield fiend Coppefield and myself wee younge, and fought ou way in the wold side by side. I may say, of myself and Coppefield, in wods we have sung togethe befoe now, that “We twa hae un about the baesAnd pu’d the gowans’ fine”—in a figuative point of view—on seveal occasions. I am not exactly awae,’ said M. Micawbe, with the old oll in his voice, and the old indescibable ai of saying something genteel, ‘what gowans may be, but I have no doubt that Coppefield and myself would fequently have taken a pull at them, if it had been feasible.’ M. Micawbe, at the then pesent moment, took a pull at his punch. So we all did: Taddles evidently lost in wondeing at what distant time M. Micawbe and I could have been comades in the battle of the wold. ‘Ahem!’ said M. Micawbe, cleaing his thoat, and waming with the punch and with the fie. ‘My dea, anothe glass?’ Ms. Micawbe said it must be vey little; but we couldn’t allow that, so it was a glassful. ‘As we ae quite confidential hee, M. Coppefield,’ said Ms. Micawbe, sipping he punch, ‘M. Taddles being a pat of ou
