No More Learning

I shall make myself
so disagreeable--and so will Jip! You'll wish you had gone, like a good
thing, for ever and ever so long, if you don't go. Besides,' said Dora,
putting back her hair, and looking wonderingly at my aunt and me, 'why
shouldn't you both go? I am not very ill indeed. Am I? '

'Why, what a question! ' cried my aunt.

'What a fancy! ' said I.

'Yes! I know I am a silly little thing! ' said Dora, slowly looking from
one of us to the other, and then putting up her pretty lips to kiss us
as she lay upon her couch. 'Well, then, you must both go, or I shall not
believe you; and then I shall cry! '

I saw, in my aunt's face, that she began to give way now, and Dora
brightened again, as she saw it too.

'You'll come back with so much to tell me, that it'll take at least
a week to make me understand! ' said Dora. 'Because I know I shan't
understand, for a length of time, if there's any business in it. And
there's sure to be some business in it! If there's anything to add up,
besides, I don't know when I shall make it out; and my bad boy will look
so miserable all the time. There! Now you'll go, won't you? You'll only
be gone one night, and Jip will take care of me while you are gone.
Doady will carry me upstairs before you go, and I won't come down again
till you come back; and you shall take Agnes a dreadfully scolding
letter from me, because she has never been to see us! '

We agreed, without any more consultation, that we would both go, and
that Dora was a little Impostor, who feigned to be rather unwell,
because she liked to be petted. She was greatly pleased, and very merry;
and we four, that is to say, my aunt, Mr. Dick, Traddles, and I, went
down to Canterbury by the Dover mail that night.

At the hotel where Mr. Micawber had requested us to await him, which
we got into, with some trouble, in the middle of the night, I found a
letter, importing that he would appear in the morning punctually at half
past nine. After which, we went shivering, at that uncomfortable hour,
to our respective beds, through various close passages; which smelt as
if they had been steeped, for ages, in a solution of soup and stables.

Early in the morning, I sauntered through the dear old tranquil streets,
and again mingled with the shadows of the venerable gateways and
churches. The rooks were sailing about the cathedral towers; and the
towers themselves, overlooking many a long unaltered mile of the rich
country and its pleasant streams, were cutting the bright morning air,
as if there were no such thing as change on earth. Yet the bells, when
they sounded, told me sorrowfully of change in everything; told me of
their own age, and my pretty Dora's youth; and of the many, never old,
who had lived and loved and died, while the reverberations of the bells
had hummed through the rusty armour of the Black Prince hanging up
within, and, motes upon the deep of Time, had lost themselves in air, as
circles do in water.

I looked at the old house from the corner of the street, but did not go
nearer to it, lest, being observed, I might unwittingly do any harm to
the design I had come to aid. The early sun was striking edgewise on its
gables and lattice-windows, touching them with gold; and some beams of
its old peace seemed to touch my heart.

I strolled into the country for an hour or so, and then returned by
the main street, which in the interval had shaken off its last night's
sleep. Among those who were stirring in the shops, I saw my ancient
enemy the butcher, now advanced to top-boots and a baby, and in business
for himself. He was nursing the baby, and appeared to be a benignant
member of society.

We all became very anxious and impatient, when we sat down to breakfast.
As it approached nearer and nearer to half past nine o'clock, our
restless expectation of Mr. Micawber increased. At last we made no more
pretence of attending to the meal, which, except with Mr. Dick, had been
a mere form from the first; but my aunt walked up and down the room,
Traddles sat upon the sofa affecting to read the paper with his eyes on
the ceiling; and I looked out of the window to give early notice of Mr.
Micawber's coming. Nor had I long to watch, for, at the first chime of
the half hour, he appeared in the street.

'Here he is,' said I, 'and not in his legal attire! '

My aunt tied the strings of her bonnet (she had come down to breakfast
in it), and put on her shawl, as if she were ready for anything that
was resolute and uncompromising. Traddles buttoned his coat with a
determined air. Mr. Dick, disturbed by these formidable appearances, but
feeling it necessary to imitate them, pulled his hat, with both hands,
as firmly over his ears as he possibly could; and instantly took it off
again, to welcome Mr. Micawber.

'Gentlemen, and madam,' said Mr. Micawber, 'good morning! My dear sir,'
to Mr. Dick, who shook hands with him violently, 'you are extremely
good. '

'Have you breakfasted? ' said Mr. Dick. 'Have a chop! '

'Not for the world, my good sir! ' cried Mr. Micawber, stopping him on
his way to the bell; 'appetite and myself, Mr. Dixon, have long been
strangers. '

Mr. Dixon was so well pleased with his new name, and appeared to think
it so obliging in Mr. Micawber to confer it upon him, that he shook
hands with him again, and laughed rather childishly.

'Dick,' said my aunt, 'attention! '

Mr. Dick recovered himself, with a blush.

'Now, sir,' said my aunt to Mr. Micawber, as she put on her gloves, 'we
are ready for Mount Vesuvius, or anything else, as soon as YOU please. '

'Madam,' returned Mr. Micawber, 'I trust you will shortly witness an
eruption. Mr. Traddles, I have your permission, I believe, to mention
here that we have been in communication together? '

'It is undoubtedly the fact, Copperfield,' said Traddles, to whom I
looked in surprise. 'Mr. Micawber has consulted me in reference to
what he has in contemplation; and I have advised him to the best of my
judgement. '

'Unless I deceive myself, Mr. Traddles,' pursued Mr. Micawber, 'what I
contemplate is a disclosure of an important nature. '

'Highly so,' said Traddles.

'Perhaps, under such circumstances, madam and gentlemen,' said Mr.
Micawber, 'you will do me the favour to submit yourselves, for the
moment, to the direction of one who, however unworthy to be regarded in
any other light but as a Waif and Stray upon the shore of human nature,
is still your fellow-man, though crushed out of his original form
by individual errors, and the accumulative force of a combination of
circumstances? '

'We have perfect confidence in you, Mr. Micawber,' said I, 'and will do
what you please. '

'Mr. Copperfield,' returned Mr. Micawber, 'your confidence is not, at
the existing juncture, ill-bestowed. I would beg to be allowed a start
of five minutes by the clock; and then to receive the present company,
inquiring for Miss Wickfield, at the office of Wickfield and Heep, whose
Stipendiary I am. '

My aunt and I looked at Traddles, who nodded his approval.

'I have no more,' observed Mr. Micawber, 'to say at present. '

With which, to my infinite surprise, he included us all in a
comprehensive bow, and disappeared; his manner being extremely distant,
and his face extremely pale.

Traddles only smiled, and shook his head (with his hair standing upright
on the top of it), when I looked to him for an explanation; so I took
out my watch, and, as a last resource, counted off the five minutes. My
aunt, with her own watch in her hand, did the like. When the time was
expired, Traddles gave her his arm; and we all went out together to the
old house, without saying one word on the way.

We found Mr. Micawber at his desk, in the turret office on the
ground floor, either writing, or pretending to write, hard. The large
office-ruler was stuck into his waistcoat, and was not so well concealed
but that a foot or more of that instrument protruded from his bosom,
like a new kind of shirt-frill.

As it appeared to me that I was expected to speak, I said aloud:

'How do you do, Mr. Micawber? '

'Mr. Copperfield,' said Mr. Micawber, gravely, 'I hope I see you well? '

'Is Miss Wickfield at home? ' said I.

'Mr. Wickfield is unwell in bed, sir, of a rheumatic fever,' he
returned; 'but Miss Wickfield, I have no doubt, will be happy to see old
friends. Will you walk in, sir? '

He preceded us to the dining-room--the first room I had entered in that
house--and flinging open the door of Mr. Wickfield's former office,
said, in a sonorous voice:

'Miss Trotwood, Mr. David Copperfield, Mr. Thomas Traddles, and Mr.
Dixon! '

I had not seen Uriah Heep since the time of the blow. Our visit
astonished him, evidently; not the less, I dare say, because it
astonished ourselves. He did not gather his eyebrows together, for he
had none worth mentioning; but he frowned to that degree that he almost
closed his small eyes, while the hurried raising of his grisly hand to
his chin betrayed some trepidation or surprise. This was only when we
were in the act of entering his room, and when I caught a glance at him
over my aunt's shoulder. A moment afterwards, he was as fawning and as
humble as ever.

'Well, I am sure,' he said. 'This is indeed an unexpected pleasure! To
have, as I may say, all friends round St. Paul's at once, is a treat
unlooked for! Mr. Copperfield, I hope I see you well, and--if I may
umbly express myself so--friendly towards them as is ever your friends,
whether or not. Mrs. Copperfield, sir, I hope she's getting on. We have
been made quite uneasy by the poor accounts we have had of her state,
lately, I do assure you. '

I felt ashamed to let him take my hand, but I did not know yet what else
to do.

'Things are changed in this office, Miss Trotwood, since I was an umble
clerk, and held your pony; ain't they? ' said Uriah, with his sickliest
smile. 'But I am not changed, Miss Trotwood. '

'Well, sir,' returned my aunt, 'to tell you the truth, I think you are
pretty constant to the promise of your youth; if that's any satisfaction
to you. '

'Thank you, Miss Trotwood,' said Uriah, writhing in his ungainly manner,
'for your good opinion! Micawber, tell 'em to let Miss Agnes know--and
mother. Mother will be quite in a state, when she sees the present
company! ' said Uriah, setting chairs.

'You are not busy, Mr. Heep? ' said Traddles, whose eye the cunning red
eye accidentally caught, as it at once scrutinized and evaded us.

'No, Mr. Traddles,' replied Uriah, resuming his official seat, and
squeezing his bony hands, laid palm to palm between his bony knees. 'Not
so much so as I could wish. But lawyers, sharks, and leeches, are not
easily satisfied, you know! Not but what myself and Micawber have our
hands pretty full, in general, on account of Mr. Wickfield's being
hardly fit for any occupation, sir. But it's a pleasure as well as a
duty, I am sure, to work for him. You've not been intimate with Mr.
Wickfield, I think, Mr. Traddles? I believe I've only had the honour of
seeing you once myself? '

'No, I have not been intimate with Mr. Wickfield,' returned Traddles;
'or I might perhaps have waited on you long ago, Mr. Heep. '

There was something in the tone of this reply, which made Uriah look at
the speaker again, with a very sinister and suspicious expression. But,
seeing only Traddles, with his good-natured face, simple manner, and
hair on end, he dismissed it as he replied, with a jerk of his whole
body, but especially his throat:

'I am sorry for that, Mr. Traddles. You would have admired him as much
as we all do. His little failings would only have endeared him to you
the more. But if you would like to hear my fellow-partner eloquently
spoken of, I should refer you to Copperfield. The family is a subject
he's very strong upon, if you never heard him. '

I was prevented from disclaiming the compliment (if I should have
done so, in any case), by the entrance of Agnes, now ushered in by Mr.
Micawber. She was not quite so self-possessed as usual, I thought; and
had evidently undergone anxiety and fatigue. But her earnest cordiality,
and her quiet beauty, shone with the gentler lustre for it.

I saw Uriah watch her while she greeted us; and he reminded me of an
ugly and rebellious genie watching a good spirit. In the meanwhile,
some slight sign passed between Mr. Micawber and Traddles; and Traddles,
unobserved except by me, went out.

'Don't wait, Micawber,' said Uriah.

Mr. Micawber, with his hand upon the ruler in his breast, stood erect
before the door, most unmistakably contemplating one of his fellow-men,
and that man his employer.

'What are you waiting for? ' said Uriah. 'Micawber! did you hear me tell
you not to wait? '

'Yes! ' replied the immovable Mr. Micawber.

'Then why DO you wait? ' said Uriah.

'Because I--in short, choose,' replied Mr. Micawber, with a burst.

Uriah's cheeks lost colour, and an unwholesome paleness, still faintly
tinged by his pervading red, overspread them. He looked at Mr. Micawber
attentively, with his whole face breathing short and quick in every
feature.

'You are a dissipated fellow, as all the world knows,' he said, with an
effort at a smile, 'and I am afraid you'll oblige me to get rid of you.
Go along! I'll talk to you presently. '

'If there is a scoundrel on this earth,' said Mr. Micawber, suddenly
breaking out again with the utmost vehemence, 'with whom I have already
talked too much, that scoundrel's name is--HEEP! '

Uriah fell back, as if he had been struck or stung. Looking slowly round
upon us with the darkest and wickedest expression that his face could
wear, he said, in a lower voice:

'Oho! This is a conspiracy! You have met here by appointment! You are
playing Booty with my clerk, are you, Copperfield? Now, take care.
You'll make nothing of this. We understand each other, you and me.
There's no love between us. You were always a puppy with a proud
stomach, from your first coming here; and you envy me my rise, do you?
None of your plots against me; I'll counterplot you! Micawber, you be
off. I'll talk to you presently. '

'Mr. Micawber,' said I, 'there is a sudden change in this fellow, in
more respects than the extraordinary one of his speaking the truth in
one particular, which assures me that he is brought to bay. Deal with
him as he deserves! '

'You are a precious set of people, ain't you? ' said Uriah, in the same
low voice, and breaking out into a clammy heat, which he wiped from his
forehead, with his long lean hand, 'to buy over my clerk, who is the
very scum of society,--as you yourself were, Copperfield, you know it,
before anyone had charity on you,--to defame me with his lies? Miss
Trotwood, you had better stop this; or I'll stop your husband shorter
than will be pleasant to you. I won't know your story professionally,
for nothing, old lady! Miss Wickfield, if you have any love for your
father, you had better not join that gang. I'll ruin him, if you do.
Now, come! I have got some of you under the harrow. Think twice, before
it goes over you. Think twice, you, Micawber, if you don't want to
be crushed. I recommend you to take yourself off, and be talked to
presently, you fool! while there's time to retreat. Where's mother? ' he
said, suddenly appearing to notice, with alarm, the absence of Traddles,
and pulling down the bell-rope. 'Fine doings in a person's own house! '

'Mrs. Heep is here, sir,' said Traddles, returning with that worthy
mother of a worthy son. 'I have taken the liberty of making myself known
to her. '

'Who are you to make yourself known? ' retorted Uriah. 'And what do you
want here? '

'I am the agent and friend of Mr. Wickfield, sir,' said Traddles, in a
composed and business-like way. 'And I have a power of attorney from him
in my pocket, to act for him in all matters. '

'The old ass has drunk himself into a state of dotage,' said Uriah,
turning uglier than before, 'and it has been got from him by fraud! '

'Something has been got from him by fraud, I know,' returned Traddles
quietly; 'and so do you, Mr. Heep. We will refer that question, if you
please, to Mr. Micawber. '

'Ury--! ' Mrs. Heep began, with an anxious gesture.

'YOU hold your tongue, mother,' he returned; 'least said, soonest
mended. '

'But, my Ury--'

'Will you hold your tongue, mother, and leave it to me? '

Though I had long known that his servility was false, and all his
pretences knavish and hollow, I had had no adequate conception of the
extent of his hypocrisy, until I now saw him with his mask off. The
suddenness with which he dropped it, when he perceived that it was
useless to him; the malice, insolence, and hatred, he revealed; the leer
with which he exulted, even at this moment, in the evil he had done--all
this time being desperate too, and at his wits' end for the means
of getting the better of us--though perfectly consistent with the
experience I had of him, at first took even me by surprise, who had
known him so long, and disliked him so heartily.

I say nothing of the look he conferred on me, as he stood eyeing us,
one after another; for I had always understood that he hated me, and I
remembered the marks of my hand upon his cheek. But when his eyes passed
on to Agnes, and I saw the rage with which he felt his power over her
slipping away, and the exhibition, in their disappointment, of the
odious passions that had led him to aspire to one whose virtues he could
never appreciate or care for, I was shocked by the mere thought of her
having lived, an hour, within sight of such a man.

After some rubbing of the lower part of his face, and some looking at us
with those bad eyes, over his grisly fingers, he made one more address
to me, half whining, and half abusive.

'You think it justifiable, do you, Copperfield, you who pride yourself
so much on your honour and all the rest of it, to sneak about my place,
eaves-dropping with my clerk? If it had been ME, I shouldn't have
wondered; for I don't make myself out a gentleman (though I never was
in the streets either, as you were, according to Micawber), but being
you! --And you're not afraid of doing this, either? You don't think at
all of what I shall do, in return; or of getting yourself into
trouble for conspiracy and so forth? Very well. We shall see! Mr.
What's-your-name, you were going to refer some question to Micawber.
There's your referee. Why don't you make him speak? He has learnt his
lesson, I see. '

Seeing that what he said had no effect on me or any of us, he sat on the
edge of his table with his hands in his pockets, and one of his splay
feet twisted round the other leg, waiting doggedly for what might
follow.

Mr. Micawber, whose impetuosity I had restrained thus far with the
greatest difficulty, and who had repeatedly interposed with the first
syllable of SCOUN-drel! without getting to the second, now burst
forward, drew the ruler from his breast (apparently as a defensive
weapon), and produced from his pocket a foolscap document, folded in the
form of a large letter. Opening this packet, with his old flourish, and
glancing at the contents, as if he cherished an artistic admiration of
their style of composition, he began to read as follows:


'"Dear Miss Trotwood and gentlemen--"'

'Bless and save the man! ' exclaimed my aunt in a low voice. 'He'd write
letters by the ream, if it was a capital offence! '

Mr. Micawber, without hearing her, went on.

'"In appearing before you to denounce probably the most consummate
Villain that has ever existed,"' Mr. Micawber, without looking off the
letter, pointed the ruler, like a ghostly truncheon, at Uriah Heep,
'"I ask no consideration for myself. The victim, from my cradle, of
pecuniary liabilities to which I have been unable to respond, I have
ever been the sport and toy of debasing circumstances. Ignominy,
Want, Despair, and Madness, have, collectively or separately, been the
attendants of my career. "'

The relish with which Mr. Micawber described himself as a prey to these
dismal calamities, was only to be equalled by the emphasis with which he
read his letter; and the kind of homage he rendered to it with a roll of
his head, when he thought he had hit a sentence very hard indeed.

'"In an accumulation of Ignominy, Want, Despair, and Madness, I entered
the office--or, as our lively neighbour the Gaul would term it, the
Bureau--of the Firm, nominally conducted under the appellation of
Wickfield and--HEEP, but in reality, wielded by--HEEP alone. HEEP, and
only HEEP, is the mainspring of that machine. HEEP, and only HEEP, is
the Forger and the Cheat. "'

Uriah, more blue than white at these words, made a dart at the letter,
as if to tear it in pieces. Mr. Micawber, with a perfect miracle of
dexterity or luck, caught his advancing knuckles with the ruler, and
disabled his right hand. It dropped at the wrist, as if it were broken.
The blow sounded as if it had fallen on wood.

'The Devil take you! ' said Uriah, writhing in a new way with pain. 'I'll
be even with you. '

'Approach me again, you--you--you HEEP of infamy,' gasped Mr. Micawber,
'and if your head is human, I'll break it. Come on, come on! '

I think I never saw anything more ridiculous--I was sensible of it, even
at the time--than Mr. Micawber making broad-sword guards with the ruler,
and crying, 'Come on! ' while Traddles and I pushed him back into a
corner, from which, as often as we got him into it, he persisted in
emerging again.

His enemy, muttering to himself, after wringing his wounded hand for
sometime, slowly drew off his neck-kerchief and bound it up; then
held it in his other hand, and sat upon his table with his sullen face
looking down.

Mr. Micawber, when he was sufficiently cool, proceeded with his letter.

'"The stipendiary emoluments in consideration of which I entered into
the service of--HEEP,"' always pausing before that word and uttering
it with astonishing vigour, '"were not defined, beyond the pittance of
twenty-two shillings and six per week. The rest was left contingent on
the value of my professional exertions; in other and more expressive
words, on the baseness of my nature, the cupidity of my motives, the
poverty of my family, the general moral (or rather immoral) resemblance
between myself and--HEEP. Need I say, that it soon became necessary for
me to solicit from--HEEP--pecuniary advances towards the support of
Mrs. Micawber, and our blighted but rising family? Need I say that this
necessity had been foreseen by--HEEP? That those advances were secured
by I. O. U. 's and other similar acknowledgements, known to the legal
institutions of this country? And that I thus became immeshed in the web
he had spun for my reception? "'

Mr. Micawber's enjoyment of his epistolary powers, in describing this
unfortunate state of things, really seemed to outweigh any pain or
anxiety that the reality could have caused him. He read on:

'"Then it was that--HEEP--began to favour me with just so much of his
confidence, as was necessary to the discharge of his infernal business.
Then it was that I began, if I may so Shakespearianly express myself, to
dwindle, peak, and pine. I found that my services were constantly
called into requisition for the falsification of business, and the
mystification of an individual whom I will designate as Mr. W. That Mr.
W. was imposed upon, kept in ignorance, and deluded, in every possible
way; yet, that all this while, the ruffian--HEEP--was professing
unbounded gratitude to, and unbounded friendship for, that much-abused
gentleman. This was bad enough; but, as the philosophic Dane observes,
with that universal applicability which distinguishes the illustrious
ornament of the Elizabethan Era, worse remains behind! "'

Mr. Micawber was so very much struck by this happy rounding off with a
quotation, that he indulged himself, and us, with a second reading of
the sentence, under pretence of having lost his place.

'"It is not my intention,"' he continued reading on, '"to enter on a
detailed list, within the compass of the present epistle (though it
is ready elsewhere), of the various malpractices of a minor nature,
affecting the individual whom I have denominated Mr. W. , to which I
have been a tacitly consenting party. My object, when the contest within
myself between stipend and no stipend, baker and no baker, existence
and non-existence, ceased, was to take advantage of my opportunities
to discover and expose the major malpractices committed, to that
gentleman's grievous wrong and injury, by--HEEP. Stimulated by the
silent monitor within, and by a no less touching and appealing monitor
without--to whom I will briefly refer as Miss W. --I entered on a not
unlaborious task of clandestine investigation, protracted--now, to the
best of my knowledge, information, and belief, over a period exceeding
twelve calendar months. "'

He read this passage as if it were from an Act of Parliament; and
appeared majestically refreshed by the sound of the words.

'"My charges against--HEEP,"' he read on, glancing at him, and drawing
the ruler into a convenient position under his left arm, in case of
need, '"are as follows. "'

We all held our breath, I think. I am sure Uriah held his.

'"First,"' said Mr. Micawber, '"When Mr. W. 's faculties and memory
for business became, through causes into which it is not necessary or
expedient for me to enter, weakened and confused,--HEEP--designedly
perplexed and complicated the whole of the official transactions. When
Mr. W. was least fit to enter on business,--HEEP was always at hand
to force him to enter on it. He obtained Mr. W. 's signature under such
circumstances to documents of importance, representing them to be other
documents of no importance. He induced Mr. W. to empower him to draw
out, thus, one particular sum of trust-money, amounting to twelve six
fourteen, two and nine, and employed it to meet pretended business
charges and deficiencies which were either already provided for, or
had never really existed. He gave this proceeding, throughout, the
appearance of having originated in Mr. W. 's own dishonest intention, and
of having been accomplished by Mr. W. 's own dishonest act; and has used
it, ever since, to torture and constrain him. "'

'You shall prove this, you Copperfield! ' said Uriah, with a threatening
shake of the head. 'All in good time! '

'Ask--HEEP--Mr. Traddles, who lived in his house after him,' said Mr.
Micawber, breaking off from the letter; 'will you? '

'The fool himself--and lives there now,' said Uriah, disdainfully.

'Ask--HEEP--if he ever kept a pocket-book in that house,' said Mr.
Micawber; 'will you? '

I saw Uriah's lank hand stop, involuntarily, in the scraping of his
chin.

'Or ask him,' said Mr. Micawber,'if he ever burnt one there. If he says
yes, and asks you where the ashes are, refer him to Wilkins Micawber,
and he will hear of something not at all to his advantage! '

The triumphant flourish with which Mr. Micawber delivered himself of
these words, had a powerful effect in alarming the mother; who cried
out, in much agitation:

'Ury, Ury! Be umble, and make terms, my dear! '

'Mother! ' he retorted, 'will you keep quiet? You're in a fright, and
don't know what you say or mean. Umble! ' he repeated, looking at me,
with a snarl; 'I've umbled some of 'em for a pretty long time back,
umble as I was! '

Mr. Micawber, genteelly adjusting his chin in his cravat, presently
proceeded with his composition.

'"Second. HEEP has, on several occasions, to the best of my knowledge,
information, and belief--"'

'But that won't do,' muttered Uriah, relieved. 'Mother, you keep quiet. '

'We will endeavour to provide something that WILL do, and do for you
finally, sir, very shortly,' replied Mr. Micawber.

'"Second. HEEP has, on several occasions, to the best of my knowledge,
information, and belief, systematically forged, to various entries,
books, and documents, the signature of Mr. W. ; and has distinctly done
so in one instance, capable of proof by me. To wit, in manner following,
that is to say:"'

Again, Mr. Micawber had a relish in this formal piling up of words,
which, however ludicrously displayed in his case, was, I must say, not
at all peculiar to him. I have observed it, in the course of my life,
in numbers of men. It seems to me to be a general rule. In the taking of
legal oaths, for instance, deponents seem to enjoy themselves mightily
when they come to several good words in succession, for the expression
of one idea; as, that they utterly detest, abominate, and abjure, or so
forth; and the old anathemas were made relishing on the same principle.
We talk about the tyranny of words, but we like to tyrannize over them
too; we are fond of having a large superfluous establishment of words to
wait upon us on great occasions; we think it looks important, and sounds
well. As we are not particular about the meaning of our liveries on
state occasions, if they be but fine and numerous enough, so, the
meaning or necessity of our words is a secondary consideration, if there
be but a great parade of them. And as individuals get into trouble by
making too great a show of liveries, or as slaves when they are too
numerous rise against their masters, so I think I could mention a
nation that has got into many great difficulties, and will get into many
greater, from maintaining too large a retinue of words.

Mr. Micawber read on, almost smacking his lips:

'"To wit, in manner following, that is to say. Mr. W. being infirm, and
it being within the bounds of probability that his decease might lead
to some discoveries, and to the downfall of--HEEP'S--power over the W.
family,--as I, Wilkins Micawber, the undersigned, assume--unless the
filial affection of his daughter could be secretly influenced from
allowing any investigation of the partnership affairs to be ever made,
the said--HEEP--deemed it expedient to have a bond ready by him, as from
Mr. W. , for the before-mentioned sum of twelve six fourteen, two and
nine, with interest, stated therein to have been advanced by--HEEP--to
Mr. W. to save Mr. W. from dishonour; though really the sum was never
advanced by him, and has long been replaced. The signatures to this
instrument purporting to be executed by Mr. W. and attested by Wilkins
Micawber, are forgeries by--HEEP. I have, in my possession, in his hand
and pocket-book, several similar imitations of Mr. W. 's signature, here
and there defaced by fire, but legible to anyone. I never attested any
such document. And I have the document itself, in my possession.