David Copperfield, Charles Dickens [best historical fiction books of all time TXT] 📗

I murmured an assent, which was full of feeling, considering that I knew nothing at all about him; and I inquired what Mr. Traddles was by profession.

“Traddles,” returned Mr. Waterbrook, “is a young man reading for the bar. Yes. He is quite a good fellow⁠—nobody’s enemy but his own.”

“Is he his own enemy?” said I, sorry to hear this.

“Well,” returned Mr. Waterbrook, pursing up his mouth, and playing with his watch-chain, in a comfortable, prosperous sort of way. “I should say he was one of those men who stand in their own light. Yes, I should say he would never, for example, be worth five hundred pound. Traddles was recommended to me by a professional friend. Oh yes. Yes. He has a kind of talent for drawing briefs, and stating a case in writing, plainly. I am able to throw something in Traddles’s way, in the course of the year; something⁠—for him⁠—considerable. Oh yes. Yes.”

I was much impressed by the extremely comfortable and satisfied manner in which Mr. Waterbrook delivered himself of this little word “Yes,” every now and then. There was wonderful expression in it. It completely conveyed the idea of a man who had been born, not to say with a silver spoon, but with a scaling-ladder, and had gone on mounting all the heights of life one after another, until now he looked, from the top of the fortifications, with the eye of a philosopher and a patron, on the people down in the trenches.

My reflections on this theme were still in progress when dinner was announced. Mr. Waterbrook went down with Hamlet’s aunt. Mr. Henry Spiker took Mrs. Waterbrook. Agnes, whom I should have liked to take myself, was given to a simpering fellow with weak legs. Uriah, Traddles, and I, as the junior part of the company, went down last, how we could. I was not so vexed at losing Agnes as I might have been, since it gave me an opportunity of making myself known to Traddles on the stairs, who greeted me with great fervour; while Uriah writhed with such obtrusive satisfaction and self-abasement, that I could gladly have pitched him over the banisters. Traddles and I were separated at table, being billeted in two remote corners: he in the glare of a red velvet lady; I, in the gloom of Hamlet’s aunt. The dinner was very long, and the conversation was about the Aristocracy⁠—and Blood. Mrs. Waterbrook repeatedly told us, that if she had a weakness, it was Blood.

It occurred to me several times that we should have got on better, if we had not been quite so genteel. We were so exceedingly genteel, that our scope was very limited. A Mr. and Mrs. Gulpidge were of the party, who had something to do at secondhand (at least, Mr. Gulpidge had) with the law business of the Bank; and what with the Bank, and what with the Treasury, we were as exclusive as the Court Circular. To mend the matter, Hamlet’s aunt had the family failing of indulging in soliloquy, and held forth in a desultory manner, by herself, on every topic that was introduced. These were few enough, to be sure; but as we always fell back upon Blood, she had as wide a field for abstract speculation as her nephew himself.

We might have been a party of Ogres, the conversation assumed such a sanguine complexion.

“I confess I am of Mrs. Waterbrook’s opinion,” said Mr. Waterbrook, with his wineglass at his eye. “Other things are all very well in their way, but give me Blood!”

“Oh! There is nothing,” observed Hamlet’s aunt, “so satisfactory to one! There is nothing that is so much one’s beau-ideal of⁠—of all that sort of thing, speaking generally. There are some low minds (not many, I am happy to believe, but there are some) that would prefer to do what I should call bow down before idols. Positively Idols! Before service, intellect, and so on. But these are intangible points. Blood is not so. We see Blood in a nose, and we know it. We meet with it in a chin, and we say, ‘There it is! That’s Blood!’ It is an actual matter of fact. We point it out. It admits of no doubt.”

The simpering fellow with the weak legs, who had taken Agnes down, stated the question more decisively yet, I thought.

“Oh, you know, deuce take it,” said this gentleman, looking round the board with an imbecile smile, “we can’t forego Blood, you know. We must have Blood, you know. Some young fellows, you know, may be a little behind their station, perhaps, in point of education and behaviour, and may go a little wrong, you know, and get themselves and other people into a variety of fixes⁠—and all that⁠—but deuce take it, it’s delightful to reflect that they’ve got Blood in ’em! Myself, I’d rather at any time be knocked down by a man who had got Blood in him, than I’d be picked up by a man who hadn’t!”

This sentiment, as compressing the general question into a nutshell, gave the utmost satisfaction, and brought the gentleman into great notice until the ladies retired. After that, I observed that Mr. Gulpidge and Mr. Henry Spiker, who had hitherto been very distant, entered into a defensive alliance against us, the common enemy, and exchanged a mysterious dialogue across the table for our defeat and overthrow.

“That affair of the first bond for four thousand five hundred pounds has not taken the course that was expected, Spiker,” said Mr. Gulpidge.

“Do you mean the D. of A.’s?” said Mr. Spiker.

“The C. of B.’s!” said Mr. Gulpidge.

Mr. Spiker raised his eyebrows, and looked much concerned.

“When the question was referred to Lord⁠—I needn’t name him,” said Mr. Gulpidge, checking himself⁠—

“I understand,” said Mr. Spiker, “N.”

Mr. Gulpidge darkly nodded⁠—“was referred to him, his answer was, ‘Money, or no release.’ ”

“Lord bless my soul!” cried Mr. Spiker.

“ ‘Money, or no release,’ ” repeated Mr. Gulpidge, firmly. “The next in reversion⁠—you understand me?”

“K.,” said Mr. Spiker, with an ominous look.

“⁠—K. then positively refused to sign. He was attended at Newmarket for that purpose, and he point-blank refused