CHAPTER 23 - I CORROBORATE Mr. DICK, AND CHOOSE A PROFESSION

When I awoke in the morning I thought very much of little Em'ly,

and her emotion last night, after Martha had left. I felt as if I

had come into the knowledge of those domestic weaknesses and

tendernesses in a sacred confidence, and that to disclose them,

even to Steerforth, would be wrong. I had no gentler feeling

towards anyone than towards the pretty creature who had been my

playmate, and whom I have always been persuaded, and shall always

be persuaded, to my dying day, I then devotedly loved. The

repetition to any ears - even to Steerforth's - of what she had

been unable to repress when her heart lay open to me by an

accident, I felt would be a rough deed, unworthy of myself,

unworthy of the light of our pure childhood, which I always saw

encircling her head. I made a resolution, therefore, to keep it in

my own breast; and there it gave her image a new grace.

While we were at breakfast, a letter was delivered to me from my

aunt. As it contained matter on which I thought Steerforth could

advise me as well as anyone, and on which I knew I should be

delighted to consult him, I resolved to make it a subject of

discussion on our journey home. For the present we had enough to

do, in taking leave of all our friends. Mr. Barkis was far from

being the last among them, in his regret at our departure; and I

believe would even have opened the box again, and sacrificed

another guinea, if it would have kept us eight-and-forty hours in

Yarmouth. Peggotty and all her family were full of grief at our

going. The whole house of Omer and Joram turned out to bid us

good-bye; and there were so many seafaring volunteers in attendance

on Steerforth, when our portmanteaux went to the coach, that if we

had had the baggage of a regiment with us, we should hardly have

wanted porters to carry it. In a word, we departed to the regret

and admiration of all concerned, and left a great many people very

sorry behind US.

Do you stay long here, Littimer?' said I, as he stood waiting to

see the coach start.

'No, sir,' he replied; 'probably not very long, sir.'

'He can hardly say, just now,' observed Steerforth, carelessly.

'He knows what he has to do, and he'll do it.'

'That I am sure he will,' said I.

Littimer touched his hat in acknowledgement of my good opinion, and

I felt about eight years old. He touched it once more, wishing us

a good journey; and we left him standing on the pavement, as

respectable a mystery as any pyramid in Egypt.

For some little time we held no conversation, Steerforth being

unusually silent, and I being sufficiently engaged in wondering,

within myself, when I should see the old places again, and what new

changes might happen to me or them in the meanwhile. At length

Steerforth, becoming gay and talkative in a moment, as he could

become anything he liked at any moment, pulled me by the arm:

'Find a voice, David. What about that letter you were speaking of

at breakfast?'

'Oh!' said I, taking it out of my pocket. 'It's from my aunt.'

'And what does she say, requiring consideration?'

'Why, she reminds me, Steerforth,' said I, 'that I came out on

this expedition to look about me, and to think a little.'

'Which, of course, you have done?'

'Indeed I can't say I have, particularly. To tell you the truth,

I am afraid I have forgotten it.'

'Well! look about you now, and make up for your negligence,' said

Steerforth. 'Look to the right, and you'll see a flat country,

with a good deal of marsh in it; look to the left, and you'll see

the same. Look to the front, and you'll find no difference; look

to the rear, and there it is still.'

I laughed, and replied that I saw no suitable profession in the

whole prospect; which was perhaps to be attributed to its flatness.

'What says our aunt on the subject?' inquired Steerforth, glancing

at the letter in my hand. 'Does she suggest anything?'

'Why, yes,' said I. 'She asks me, here, if I think I should like

to be a proctor? What do you think of it?'

'Well, I don't know,' replied Steerforth, coolly. 'You may as well

do that as anything else, I suppose?'

I could not help laughing again, at his balancing all callings and

professions so equally; and I told him so.

'What is a proctor, Steerforth?' said I.

'Why, he is a sort of monkish attorney,' replied Steerforth. 'He

is, to some faded courts held in Doctors' Commons, - a lazy old

nook near St. Paul's Churchyard - what solicitors are to the courts

of law and equity. He is a functionary whose existence, in the

natural course of things, would have terminated about two hundred

years ago. I can tell you best what he is, by telling you what

Doctors' Commons is. It's a little out-of-the-way place, where

they administer what is called ecclesiastical law, and play all

kinds of tricks with obsolete old monsters of acts of Parliament,

which three-fourths of the world know nothing about, and the other

fourth supposes to have been dug up, in a fossil state, in the days

of the Edwards. It's a place that has an ancient monopoly in suits

about people's wills and people's marriages, and disputes among

ships and boats.'

'Nonsense, Steerforth!' I exclaimed. 'You don't mean to say that

there is any affinity between nautical matters and ecclesiastical

matters?'

'I don't, indeed, my dear boy,' he returned; 'but I mean to say

that they are managed and decided by the same set of people, down

in that same Doctors' Commons. You shall go there one day, and

find them blundering through half the nautical terms in Young's

Dictionary, apropos of the "Nancy" having run down the "Sarah

Jane", or Mr. Peggotty and the Yarmouth boatmen having put off in

a gale of wind with an anchor and cable to the "Nelson" Indiaman in

distress; and you shall go there another day, and find them deep in

the evidence, pro and con, respecting a clergyman who has

misbehaved himself; and you shall find the judge in the nautical

case, the advocate in the clergyman's case, or contrariwise. They

are like actors: now a man's a judge, and now he is not a judge;

now he's one thing, now he's another; now he's something else,

change and change about; but it's always a very pleasant,

profitable little affair of private theatricals, presented to an

uncommonly select audience.'

'But advocates and proctors are not one and the same?' said I, a

little puzzled. 'Are they?'

'No,' returned Steerforth, 'the advocates are civilians - men who

have taken a doctor's degree at college - which is the first reason

of my knowing anything about it. The proctors employ the

advocates. Both get very comfortable fees, and altogether they

make a mighty snug little party. On the whole, I would recommend

you to take to Doctors' Commons kindly, David. They plume them-

selves on their gentility there, I can tell you, if that's any

satisfaction.'

I made allowance for Steerforth's light way of treating the

subject, and, considering it with reference to the staid air of

gravity and antiquity which I associated with that 'lazy old nook

near St. Paul's Churchyard', did not feel indisposed towards my

aunt's suggestion; which she left to my free decision, making no

scruple of telling me that it had occurred to her, on her lately

visiting her own proctor in Doctors' Commons for the purpose of

settling her will in my favour.

'That's a laudable proceeding on the part of our aunt, at all

events,' said Steerforth, when I mentioned it; 'and one deserving

of all encouragement. Daisy, my advice is that you take kindly to

Doctors' Commons.'

I quite made up my mind to do so. I then told Steerforth that my

aunt was in town awaiting me (as I found from her letter), and that

she had taken lodgings for a week at a kind of private hotel at

Lincoln's Inn Fields, where there was a stone staircase, and a

convenient door in the roof; my aunt being firmly persuaded that

every house in London was going to be burnt down every night.

We achieved the rest of our journey pleasantly, sometimes recurring

to Doctors' Commons, and anticipating the distant days when I

should be a proctor there, which Steerforth pictured in a variety

of humorous and whimsical lights, that made us both merry. When we

came to our journey's end, he went home, engaging to call upon me

next day but one; and I drove to Lincoln's Inn Fields, where I

found my aunt up, and waiting supper.

If I had been round the world since we parted, we could hardly have

been better pleased to meet again. My aunt cried outright as she

embraced me; and said, pretending to laugh, that if my poor mother

had been alive, that silly little creature would have shed tears,

she had no doubt.

'So you have left Mr. Dick behind, aunt?' said I. 'I am sorry for

that. Ah, Janet, how do you do?'

As Janet curtsied, hoping I was well, I observed my aunt's visage

lengthen very much.

'I am sorry for it, too,' said my aunt, rubbing her nose. 'I have

had no peace of mind, Trot, since I have been here.'

Before I could ask why, she told me.

'I am convinced,' said my aunt, laying her hand with melancholy

firmness on the table, 'that Dick's character is not a character to

keep the donkeys off. I am confident he wants strength of purpose.

I ought to have left Janet at home, instead, and then my mind might

perhaps have been at ease. If ever there was a donkey trespassing

on my green,' said my aunt, with emphasis, 'there was one this

afternoon at four o'clock. A cold feeling came over me from head

to foot, and I know it was a donkey!'

I tried to comfort her on this point, but she rejected consolation.

'It was a donkey,' said my aunt; 'and it was the one with the

stumpy tail which that Murdering sister of a woman rode, when she

came to my house.' This had been, ever since, the only name my

aunt knew for Miss Murdstone. 'If there is any Donkey in Dover,

whose audacity it is harder to me to bear than another's, that,'

said my aunt, striking the table, 'is the animal!'

Janet ventured to suggest that my aunt might be disturbing herself

unnecessarily, and that she believed the donkey in question was

then engaged in the sand-and-gravel line of business, and was not

available for purposes of trespass. But my aunt wouldn't hear of

it.

Supper was comfortably served and hot, though my aunt's rooms were

very high up - whether that she might have more stone stairs for

her money, or might be nearer to the door in the roof, I don't know

- and consisted of a roast fowl, a steak, and some vegetables, to

all of which I did ample justice, and which were all excellent.

But my aunt had her own ideas concerning London provision, and ate

but little.

'I suppose this unfortunate fowl was born and brought up in a

cellar,' said my aunt, 'and never took the air except on a hackney

coach-stand. I hope the steak may be beef, but I don't believe it.

Nothing's genuine in the place, in my opinion, but the dirt.'

'Don't you think the fowl may have come out of the country, aunt?'

I hinted.

'Certainly not,' returned my aunt. 'It would be no pleasure to a

London tradesman to sell anything which was what he pretended it

was.'

I did not venture to controvert this opinion, but I made a good

supper, which it greatly satisfied her to see me do. When the

table was cleared, Janet assisted her to arrange her hair, to put

on her nightcap, which was of a smarter construction than usual

('in case of fire', my aunt said), and to fold her gown back over

her knees, these being her usual preparations for warming herself

before going to bed. I then made her, according to certain

established regulations from which no deviation, however slight,

could ever be permitted, a glass of hot wine and water, and a slice

of toast cut into long thin strips. With these accompaniments we

were left alone to finish the evening, my aunt sitting opposite to

me drinking her wine and water; soaking her strips of toast in it,

one by one, before eating them; and looking benignantly on me, from

among the borders of her nightcap.

'Well, Trot,' she began, 'what do you think of the proctor plan?

Or have you not begun to think about it yet?'

'I have thought a good deal about it, my dear aunt, and I have

talked a good deal about it with Steerforth. I like it very much

indeed. I like it exceedingly.'

'Come!' said my aunt. 'That's cheering!'

'I have only one difficulty, aunt.'

'Say what it is, Trot,' she returned.

'Why, I want to ask, aunt, as this seems, from what I understand,

to be a limited profession, whether my entrance into it would not

be very expensive?'

'It will cost,' returned my aunt, 'to article you, just a thousand

pounds.'

'Now, my dear aunt,' said I, drawing my chair nearer, 'I am uneasy

in my mind about that. It's a large sum of money. You have

expended a great deal on my education, and have always been as

liberal to me in all things as it was possible to be. You have

been the soul of generosity. Surely there are some ways in which

I might begin life with hardly any outlay, and yet begin with a

good hope of getting on by resolution and exertion. Are you sure

that it would not be better to try that course? Are you certain

that you can afford to part with so much money, and that it is

right that it should be so expended? I only ask you, my second

mother, to consider. Are you certain?'

My aunt finished eating the piece of toast on which she was then

engaged, looking me full in the face all the while; and then

setting her glass on the chimney-piece, and folding her hands upon

her folded skirts, replied as follows:

'Trot, my child, if I have any object in life, it is to provide for

your being a good, a sensible, and a happy man. I am bent upon it

- so is Dick. I should like some people that I know to hear Dick's

conversation on the subject. Its sagacity is wonderful. But no

one knows the resources of that man's intellect, except myself!'

She stopped for a moment to take my hand between hers, and went on:

'It's in vain, Trot, to recall the past, unless it works some

influence upon the present. Perhaps I might have been better

friends with your poor father. Perhaps I might have been better

friends with that poor child your mother, even after your sister

Betsey Trotwood disappointed me. When you came to me, a little

runaway boy, all dusty and way-worn, perhaps I thought so. From

that time until now, Trot, you have ever been a credit to me and a

pride and a pleasure. I have no other claim upon my means; at

least' - here to my surprise she hesitated, and was confused - 'no,

I have no other claim upon my means - and you are my adopted child.

Only be a loving child to me in my age, and bear with my whims and

fancies; and you will do more for an old woman whose prime of life

was not so happy or conciliating as it might have been, than ever

that old woman did for you.'

It was the first time I had heard my aunt refer to her past

history. There was a magnanimity in her quiet way of doing so, and

of dismissing it, which would have exalted her in my respect and

affection, if anything could.

'All is agreed and understood between us, now, Trot,' said my aunt,

'and we need talk of this no more. Give me a kiss, and we'll go to

the Commons after breakfast tomorrow.'

We had a long chat by the fire before we went to bed. I slept in

a room on the same floor with my aunt's, and was a little disturbed

in the course of the night by her knocking at my door as often as

she was agitated by a distant sound of hackney-coaches or

market-carts, and inquiring, 'if I heard the engines?' But towards

morning she slept better, and suffered me to do so too.

At about mid-day, we set out for the office of Messrs Spenlow and

Jorkins, in Doctors' Commons. My aunt, who had this other general

opinion in reference to London, that every man she saw was a

pickpocket, gave me her purse to carry for her, which had ten

guineas in it and some silver.

We made a pause at the toy shop in Fleet Street, to see the giants

of Saint Dunstan's strike upon the bells - we had timed our going,

so as to catch them at it, at twelve o'clock - and then went on

towards Ludgate Hill, and St. Paul's Churchyard. We were crossing

to the former place, when I found that my aunt greatly accelerated

her speed, and looked frightened. I observed, at the same time,

that a lowering ill-dressed man who had stopped and stared at us in

passing, a little before, was coming so close after us as to brush

against her.

'Trot! My dear Trot!' cried my aunt, in a terrified whisper, and

pressing my arm. 'I don't know what I am to do.'

'Don't be alarmed,' said I. 'There's nothing to be afraid of.

Step into a shop, and I'll soon get rid of this fellow.'

'No, no, child!' she returned. 'Don't speak to him for the world.

I entreat, I order you!'

'Good Heaven, aunt!' said I. 'He is nothing but a sturdy

beggar.'

'You don't know what he is!' replied my aunt. 'You don't know who

he is! You don't know what you say!'

We had stopped in an empty door-way, while this was passing, and he

had stopped too.

'Don't look at him!' said my aunt, as I turned my head indignantly,

'but get me a coach, my dear, and wait for me in St. Paul's

Churchyard.'

'Wait for you?' I replied.

'Yes,' rejoined my aunt. 'I must go alone. I must go with him.'

'With him, aunt? This man?'

'I am in my senses,' she replied, 'and I tell you I must. Get mea

coach!'

However much astonished I might be, I was sensible that I had no

right to refuse compliance with such a peremptory command. I

hurried away a few paces, and called a hackney-chariot which was

passing empty. Almost before I could let down the steps, my aunt

sprang in, I don't know how, and the man followed. She waved her

hand to me to go away, so earnestly, that, all confounded as I was,

I turned from them at once. In doing so, I heard her say to the

coachman, 'Drive anywhere! Drive straight on!' and presently the

chariot passed me, going up the hill.

What Mr. Dick had told me, and what I had supposed to be a delusion

of his, now came into my mind. I could not doubt that this person

was the person of whom he had made such mysterious mention, though

what the nature of his hold upon my aunt could possibly be, I was

quite unable to imagine. After half an hour's cooling in the

churchyard, I saw the chariot coming back. The driver stopped

beside me, and my aunt was sitting in it alone.

She had not yet sufficiently recovered from her agitation to be

quite prepared for the visit we had to make. She desired me to get

into the chariot, and to tell the coachman to drive slowly up and

down a little while. She said no more, except, 'My dear child,

never ask me what it was, and don't refer to it,' until she had

perfectly regained her composure, when she told me she was quite

herself now, and we might get out. On her giving me her purse to

pay the driver, I found that all the guineas were gone, and only

the loose silver remained.

Doctors' Commons was approached by a little low archway. Before we

had taken many paces down the street beyond it, the noise of the

city seemed to melt, as if by magic, into a softened distance. A

few dull courts and narrow ways brought us to the sky-lighted

offices of Spenlow and Jorkins; in the vestibule of which temple,

accessible to pilgrims without the ceremony of knocking, three or

four clerks were at work as copyists. One of these, a little dry

man, sitting by himself, who wore a stiff brown wig that looked as

if it were made of gingerbread, rose to receive my aunt, and show

us into Mr. Spenlow's room.

'Mr. Spenlow's in Court, ma'am,' said the dry man; 'it's an Arches

day; but it's close by, and I'll send for him directly.'

As we were left to look about us while Mr. Spenlow was fetched, I

availed myself of the opportunity. The furniture of the room was

old-fashioned and dusty; and the green baize on the top of the

writing-table had lost all its colour, and was as withered and pale

as an old pauper. There were a great many bundles of papers on it,

some endorsed as Allegations, and some (to my surprise) as Libels,

and some as being in the Consistory Court, and some in the Arches

Court, and some in the Prerogative Court, and some in the Admiralty

Court, and some in the Delegates' Court; giving me occasion to

wonder much, how many Courts there might be in the gross, and how

long it would take to understand them all. Besides these, there

were sundry immense manuscript Books of Evidence taken on

affidavit, strongly bound, and tied together in massive sets, a set

to each cause, as if every cause were a history in ten or twenty

volumes. All this looked tolerably expensive, I thought, and gave

me an agreeable notion of a proctor's business. I was casting my

eyes with increasing complacency over these and many similar

objects, when hasty footsteps were heard in the room outside, and

Mr. Spenlow, in a black gown trimmed with white fur, came hurrying

in, taking off his hat as he came.

He was a little light-haired gentleman, with undeniable boots, and

the stiffest of white cravats and shirt-collars. He was buttoned

up, mighty trim and tight, and must have taken a great deal of

pains with his whiskers, which were accurately curled. His gold

watch-chain was so massive, that a fancy came across me, that he

ought to have a sinewy golden arm, to draw it out with, like those

which are put up over the goldbeaters' shops. He was got up with

such care, and was so stiff, that he could hardly bend himself;

being obliged, when he glanced at some papers on his desk, after

sitting down in his chair, to move his whole body, from the bottom

of his spine, like Punch.

I had previously been presented by my aunt, and had been

courteously received. He now said:

'And so, Mr. Copperfield, you think of entering into our

profession? I casually mentioned to Miss Trotwood, when I had the

pleasure of an interview with her the other day,' - with another

inclination of his body - Punch again - 'that there was a vacancy

here. Miss Trotwood was good enough to mention that she had a

nephew who was her peculiar care, and for whom she was seeking to

provide genteelly in life. That nephew, I believe, I have now the

pleasure of' - Punch again.

I bowed my acknowledgements, and said, my aunt had mentioned to me

that there was that opening, and that I believed I should like it

very much. That I was strongly inclined to like it, and had taken

immediately to the proposal. That I could not absolutely pledge

myself to like it, until I knew something more about it. That

although it was little else than a matter of form, I presumed I

should have an opportunity of trying how I liked it, before I bound

myself to it irrevocably.

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

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

to propose two months - three - an indefinite period, in fact - but

I have a partner. Mr. Jorkins.'

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

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

Spenlow. 'As I have mentioned to Miss Trotwood, I am actuated by

no mercenary considerations; few men are less so, I believe; but

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

respect Mr. Jorkins's opinions. Mr. Jorkins thinks a thousand

pounds too little, in short.'

'I suppose, sir,' said I, still desiring to spare my aunt, 'that it

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

useful, and made himself a perfect master of his profession' - I

could not help blushing, this looked so like praising myself - 'I

suppose it is not the custom, in the later years of his time, to

allow him any -'

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

of his cravat to shake it, and answered, anticipating the word

'salary':

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

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

immovable.'

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

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

whose place in the business was to keep himself in the background,

and be constantly exhibited by name as the most obdurate and

ruthless of men. If a clerk wanted his salary raised, Mr. Jorkins

wouldn't listen to such a proposition. If a client were slow to

settle his bill of costs, Mr. Jorkins was resolved to have it paid;

and however painful these things might be (and always were) to the

feelings of Mr. Spenlow, Mr. Jorkins would have his bond. The

heart and hand of the good angel Spenlow would have been always

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

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

business on the principle of Spenlow and Jorkins!

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

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

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

be the subject, could easily be sent to her at home for her

signature. When we had got so far, Mr. Spenlow offered to take me

into Court then and there, and show me what sort of place it was.

As I was willing enough to know, we went out with this object,

leaving my aunt behind; who would trust herself, she said, in no

such place, and who, I think, regarded all Courts of Law as a sort

of powder-mills that might blow up at any time.

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

brick houses, which I inferred, from the Doctors' names upon the

doors, to be the official abiding-places of the learned advocates

of whom Steerforth had told me; and into a large dull room, not

unlike a chapel to my thinking, on the left hand. The upper part

of this room was fenced off from the rest; and there, on the two

sides of a raised platform of the horse-shoe form, sitting on easy

old-fashioned dining-room chairs, were sundry gentlemen in red

gowns and grey wigs, whom I found to be the Doctors aforesaid.

Blinking over a little desk like a pulpit-desk, in the curve of the

horse-shoe, was an old gentleman, whom, if I had seen him in an

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

learned, was the presiding judge. In the space within the

horse-shoe, lower than these, that is to say, on about the level of

the floor, were sundry other gentlemen, of Mr. Spenlow's rank, and

dressed like him in black gowns with white fur upon them, sitting

at a long green table. Their cravats were in general stiff, I

thought, and their looks haughty; but in this last respect I

presently conceived I had done them an injustice, for when two or

three of them had to rise and answer a question of the presiding

dignitary, I never saw anything more sheepish. The public,

represented by a boy with a comforter, and a shabby-genteel man

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

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

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

voice of one of the Doctors, who was wandering slowly through a

perfect library of evidence, and stopping to put up, from time to

time, at little roadside inns of argument on the journey.

Altogether, I have never, on any occasion, made one at such a

cosey, dosey, old-fashioned, time-forgotten, sleepy-headed little

family-party in all my life; and I felt it would be quite a

soothing opiate to belong to it in any character - except perhaps

as a suitor.

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

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

rejoined my aunt; in company with whom I presently departed from

the Commons, feeling very young when I went out of Spenlow and

Jorkins's, on account of the clerks poking one another with their

pens to point me out.

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

except encountering an unlucky donkey in a costermonger's cart, who

suggested painful associations to my aunt. We had another long

talk about my plans, when we were safely housed; and as I knew she

was anxious to get home, and, between fire, food, and pickpockets,

could never be considered at her ease for half-an-hour in London,

I urged her not to be uncomfortable on my account, but to leave me

to take care of myself.

'I have not been here a week tomorrow, without considering that

too, my dear,' she returned. 'There is a furnished little set of

chambers to be let in the Adelphi, Trot, which ought to suit you to

a marvel.'

With this brief introduction, she produced from her pocket an

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

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

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

of chambers, forming a genteel residence for a young gentleman, a

member of one of the Inns of Court, or otherwise, with immediate

possession. Terms moderate, and could be taken for a month only,

if required.

'Why, this is the very thing, aunt!' said I, flushed with the

possible dignity of living in chambers.

'Then come,' replied my aunt, immediately resuming the bonnet she

had a minute before laid aside. 'We'll go and look at 'em.'

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

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

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

four times that we could prevail on Mrs. Crupp to communicate with

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

flannel petticoat below a nankeen gown.

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

aunt.

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

her keys.

'Yes, for my nephew,' said my aunt.

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

So we went upstairs.

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

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

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

pantry where you could see nothing at all, a sitting-room, and a

bedroom. The furniture was rather faded, but quite good enough for

me; and, sure enough, the river was outside the windows.

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

into the pantry to discuss the terms, while I remained on the

sitting-room sofa, hardly daring to think it possible that I could

be destined to live in such a noble residence. After a single

combat of some duration they returned, and I saw, to my joy, both

in Mrs. Crupp's countenance and in my aunt's, that the deed was

done.

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

'Yes, it is, ma'am,' said Mrs. Crupp.

'What's become of him?' asked my aunt.

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

which she articulated with much difficulty. 'He was took ill here,

ma'am, and - ugh! ugh! ugh! dear me! - and he died!'

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

'Well, ma'am, he died of drink,' said Mrs. Crupp, in confidence.

'And smoke.'

'Smoke? You don't mean chimneys?' said my aunt.

'No, ma'am,' returned Mrs. Crupp. 'Cigars and pipes.'

'That's not catching, Trot, at any rate,' remarked my aunt, turning

to me.

'No, indeed,' said I.

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

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

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

every other necessary was already provided; and Mrs. Crupp

expressly intimated that she should always yearn towards me as a

son. I was to take possession the day after tomorrow, and Mrs.

Crupp said, thank Heaven she had now found summun she could care

for!

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

that the life I was now to lead would make me firm and

self-reliant, which was all I wanted. She repeated this several

times next day, in the intervals of our arranging for the

transmission of my clothes and books from Mr. Wickfield's; relative

to which, and to all my late holiday, I wrote a long letter to

Agnes, of which my aunt took charge, as she was to leave on the

succeeding day. Not to lengthen these particulars, I need only

add, that she made a handsome provision for all my possible wants

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

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

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

exulting in the coming discomfiture of the vagrant donkeys, with

Janet at her side; and that when the coach was gone, I turned my

face to the Adelphi, pondering on the old days when I used to roam

about its subterranean arches, and on the happy changes which had

brought me to the surface.

Read next: CHAPTER 24 - MY FIRST DISSIPATION

Read previous: CHAPTER 22 - SOME OLD SCENES, AND SOME NEW PEOPLE

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