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

way of writhing when he wanted to express enthusiasm, which was very ugly; and which diverted my attention from the compliment he had paid my relation, to the snaky twistings of his throat and body.

“A sweet lady, Master Copperfield!” said Uriah Heep. “She has a great admiration for Miss Agnes, Master Copperfield, I believe?”

I said, “Yes,” boldly; not that I knew anything about it, Heaven forgive me!

“I hope you have, too, Master Copperfield,” said Uriah. “But I am sure you must have.”

“Everybody must have,” I returned.

“Oh, thank you, Master Copperfield,” said Uriah Heep, “for that remark! It is so true! ’Umble as I am, I know it is so true! Oh, thank you, Master Copperfield!” He writhed himself quite off his stool in the excitement of his feelings, and, being off, began to make arrangements for going home.

“Mother will be expecting me,” he said, referring to a pale, inexpressive-faced watch in his pocket, “and getting uneasy; for though we are very ’umble, Master Copperfield, we are much attached to one another. If you would come and see us, any afternoon, and take a cup of tea at our lowly dwelling, mother would be as proud of your company as I should be.”

I said I should be glad to come.

“Thank you, Master Copperfield,” returned Uriah, putting his book away upon the shelf⁠—“I suppose you stop here, some time, Master Copperfield?”

I said I was going to be brought up there, I believed, as long as I remained at school.

“Oh, indeed!” exclaimed Uriah. “I should think you would come into the business at last, Master Copperfield!”

I protested that I had no views of that sort, and that no such scheme was entertained in my behalf by anybody; but Uriah insisted on blandly replying to all my assurances, “Oh, yes, Master Copperfield, I should think you would, indeed!” and, “Oh, indeed, Master Copperfield, I should think you would, certainly!” over and over again. Being, at last, ready to leave the office for the night, he asked me if it would suit my convenience to have the light put out; and on my answering “Yes,” instantly extinguished it. After shaking hands with me⁠—his hand felt like a fish, in the dark⁠—he opened the door into the street a very little, and crept out, and shut it, leaving me to grope my way back into the house: which cost me some trouble and a fall over his stool. This was the proximate cause, I suppose, of my dreaming about him, for what appeared to me to be half the night; and dreaming, among other things, that he had launched Mr. Peggotty’s house on a piratical expedition, with a black flag at the masthead, bearing the inscription “Tidd’s Practice,” under which diabolical ensign he was carrying me and little Em’ly to the Spanish Main, to be drowned.

I got a little the better of my uneasiness when I went to school next day, and a good deal the better next day, and so shook it off by degrees, that in less than a fortnight I was quite at home, and happy, among my new companions. I was awkward enough in their games, and backward enough in their studies; but custom would improve me in the first respect, I hoped, and hard work in the second. Accordingly, I went to work very hard, both in play and in earnest, and gained great commendation. And, in a very little while, the Murdstone and Grinby life became so strange to me that I hardly believed in it, while my present life grew so familiar, that I seemed to have been leading it a long time.

Doctor Strong’s was an excellent school; as different from Mr. Creakle’s as good is from evil. It was very gravely and decorously ordered, and on a sound system; with an appeal, in everything, to the honour and good faith of the boys, and an avowed intention to rely on their possession of those qualities unless they proved themselves unworthy of it, which worked wonders. We all felt that we had a part in the management of the place, and in sustaining its character and dignity. Hence, we soon became warmly attached to it⁠—I am sure I did for one, and I never knew, in all my time, of any other boy being otherwise⁠—and learnt with a good will, desiring to do it credit. We had noble games out of hours, and plenty of liberty; but even then, as I remember, we were well spoken of in the town, and rarely did any disgrace, by our appearance or manner, to the reputation of Doctor Strong and Doctor Strong’s boys.

Some of the higher scholars boarded in the Doctor’s house, and through them I learned, at second hand, some particulars of the Doctor’s history⁠—as, how he had not yet been married twelve months to the beautiful young lady I had seen in the study, whom he had married for love; for she had not a sixpence, and had a world of poor relations (so our fellows said) ready to swarm the Doctor out of house and home. Also, how the Doctor’s cogitating manner was attributable to his being always engaged in looking out for Greek roots; which, in my innocence and ignorance, I supposed to be a botanical furor on the Doctor’s part, especially as he always looked at the ground when he walked about, until I understood that they were roots of words, with a view to a new Dictionary which he had in contemplation. Adams, our head-boy, who had a turn for mathematics, had made a calculation, I was informed, of the time this Dictionary would take in completing, on the Doctor’s plan, and at the Doctor’s rate of going. He considered that it might be done in one thousand six hundred and forty-nine years, counting from the Doctor’s last, or sixty-second, birthday.

But the Doctor himself was the idol of the whole school: and it must have been a badly composed school if he had been anything else, for he