Chapter I: ONCE sat with several thousand people on one summer evening to watch

an historical pageant at Warwick in England. Back of us were the walls of the great Norman castle, around us were the old trees that had been there for centuries, and through the trees we could see the little River Avon. Then the townspeople acted out for us the romantic scenes that had taken place on that very spot. First we saw the Druids building their altars; then the Romans came; and after them the Saxons. After a while we saw Norman knights riding under the greenwood trees. Warwick the king-maker rode up to his castle. Then there was a stir on the river, and we saw Queen Elizabeth in her barge. When she had been received in state, the officers of the neighboring towns were presented to her. Among them was Mr. Shakespeare from Stratford, who brought with him his young son, William. Then came Cromwell’s soldiers and the men who have made history since Queen Elizabeth’s day.

It was all very picturesque, and we felt that we were really watching the events that had taken place on that spot through the centuries of English history. But when the Druids and the Saxons and the Normans and the great personages of every degree had passed out of our sight, there was only one person left. It was the little boy from Stratford. He stood there all alone, thinking it all over. Then he walked away.

Now the thing that made the most impression upon us was this boy who had the gift of seeing all we saw and more in his imagination. For, after all, the great thing about the River Avon is that this boy once played upon its banks. And the pleasant Warwickshire country has for its chief charm the fact that William Shakespeare knew it and loved it.

Now and then a person is born who has the gift not only of seeing things more clearly than we do, but of making us see them more vividly than we could without his help. Such a person we call a genius. He gives us the use of his mind. When such a person writes a book, it is as if he had created an interesting country and filled it with all sorts of things for our amusement. He invites us to visit him and make ourselves at home. And the best of it is that we are not invited for a particular day. The invitation is open to us for a lifetime. Whenever we feel inclined, we may visit Shakespeare’s country and meet all the Shakespearian people and listen to their talk. And the more often we go on such visits, the more enjoyment we find.

Now it is the same with Dickens. To be sure, his hospitality is not on so grand a scale as Shakespeare’s. He does not show us kings, or knights in armor, or vast parks and lordly castles. But he opens to us a world of imagination that is his own. It is filled with common people, but they are uncommonly amusing. We see not only what they are doing, but also what they think they are doing, which is often absurdly different. We see their “tricks and their manners” as they cannot possibly see them. That is where we have the advantage of them. Some of them strut about as if they owned the earth, while some that wear poor clothes and endure hard knocks turn out to be the real heroes. Dickens is not like some writers who pride themselves on not telling what they think of their characters. He has his likes and his dislikes, and he doesn’t care who knows it. He hates a bully, whether he is a man or boy, and he loves the people who knock the bully down. That is because he suffered so much from bullies when he was a boy.

When he was twelve years old, his father lost his money and was thrown into a debtors’ prison. It was a queer way they had then of treating a person who couldn’t pay his debts. They shut him up where he couldn’t earn anything. Charles had to visit pawn-shops to try to borrow money for the family. Then he was put to work in a big, gloomy establishment where they made blacking for shoes. His work was to sit all day on a bench pasting labels on the boxes. Then he would have to find ways of keeping alive on a few pennies he got each day.

But though he had a very hard time for a year or two, he spent his time greatly to his own and our advantage. Before he was thirteen, he had accumulated a great deal of experience. He had kept his eyes open and had seen a side of life that most people never see at all.

When I think of Dickens and of his way of finding out obscure people, and making them interesting, I remember the advice I once read in a newspaper as to how to find a collar-button. When a collar-button rolls off the dressing-table, it seems to have an uncanny way of rolling out of sight. The gentleman who is in need of it feels himself greatly aggrieved over the collar-button’s easy way of getting lost. Now the newspaper man said that the reason the man doesn’t see the collar-button is that he stands too high above it. If he will forget all about his dignity and lie down on the floor, he can’t help but see what he is looking for. In order to see it he must get down to the level where the collar-button is. There he will see it shining like a little mountain of gold.

I think that explains why Dickens sees so much more in his characters than other persons would who did not have his advantages. He does not look down on his characters. He meets them on their own level, because he has been there. And so he makes us see them.

He learned very early that, no matter where a person is, he is always the centre of his little world. He always has something that he is afraid of and always has something that he hopes for. And he learned to sympathize not only with the big hopes and fears but with the little hopes and fears. They are the things which wise people often overlook, but they are really very important, for there are so many of them.

Dickens did not write children’s stories, that is, stories about children who stayed as children. Of course there are children in his novels just as there are in the London streets--plenty of them. But they are all mixed up with the older people. And then they are all the time growing up just as they do in real life. You get acquainted with a small boy in one chapter; and the next time you meet him he is at boarding-school, and before the end of the book he is out walking with children of his own.

This is the reason why it would not be worth while to try to tell the stories of the children in the novels of Dickens. The moment you got to the most exciting part of the story you would find that they weren’t children at all. They are quite grown up. The fact is that Dickens was not very much of a story-teller. We do not read him for the plot, which is often hard to follow. He gives us scenes, one after another, each one really complete in itself.

When we sit down by the fire on a winter evening, some one says: “What shall we read? We haven’t time to read a book through--only a chapter.” Now the chances are that we choose a chapter from Dickens. And it’s very likely that we will choose some scene which we all are most familiar with.

We come into an inn. The coach has just arrived, and there is a cheerful bustle. We hear the blowing of the horns and the cracking of the whips, and if Mr. Weller happens to be driver, or if Mr. Pickwick and his friends happen to be on board, we are sure that we will be left in a state of great good humor.

Or we drop into a shabby little house, and climb the stairs till we come to a room where some of our friends are having a little dinner. They are making speeches to one another, and acting in a most extraordinary manner. It’s their way of having a good time, and we are glad that they can enjoy themselves over so little.

We hear people quarrelling and crying and laughing, and we are curious to know what it is all about. The best of it is that Dickens always tells us. If a man is a villain, we see it at once; and if he is a good-hearted person, we give him credit for it. We do not have to read the book through to get the flavor of it. We go at once to the scenes that please us best.

The scenes that are selected for this book are those in which children appear, and we want to see them as Dickens did.

PIP

III

PIP

AS I have said, almost all the Dickens people lived in London or went up to it sometimes. But all were not born there, and many of them, as children, lived in little villages. When they got to be seventeen or eighteen, they went to the great city to seek their fortunes.

There was Pip. I don’t care so much for him after he grew up. When he got to London he became very much like other folks. I like him best when he was a small boy in the country.

His name was Philip Pirrip. This was hard to pronounce, and puckered up the lips like “Peter Piper picked a peck of peppers.” The best he could make of it was Pip, and so everybody called him that for short.

His father and mother had died, and he was brought up by his older sister, who had married Joe Gargery, the blacksmith. She was twenty years older than Pip and had forgotten how she felt when she was his age. This made trouble for them both.

Pip had a hard time with Mrs. Gargery, and so had Joe, and so they became great chums. Joe was a big man, and his arms were strong, as all blacksmiths’ are, but he had never learned to read and write, though he knew some of the letters of the alphabet and was very proud over that.

The house where the Gargerys lived was in the marsh country near a river. One could look out on a dark flat country with little ditches running through it in every direction. It was a place where one could easily get lost, and where robbers could hide. There was a prison ship down near the mouth of the river, and now and then some of the prisoners would escape and get into the marsh. Pip met two of them once and had an exciting adventure. Down by the river there was a battery, and Pip used to go down with Joe Gargery sometimes and sit on the old cannon, while Joe would tell what fine things they would do if Mrs. Joe would let them. But she never did let them do what they wanted to do if she could prevent it.

_Copyright by Charles Scribner’s Sons_

PIP AND JOE GARGERY]

Pip went to an evening school taught by an old lady who also kept a little store in the same room. He didn’t learn very much, for the old lady used to go to sleep most of the time. But as she only charged four cents a week, Mrs. Joe thought it was cheap enough. It was in this school that Pip learned the alphabet, and he was very proud when he found that he could put the letters together to make words. He wanted to know whether Joe had learned to read, and Joe did not want him to find out. One night they were sitting in the chimney corner, and with great effort Pip printed a letter which he handed to Joe. He tells how the letter was received.

WHY JOE DID NOT KNOW HOW TO READ

“mI deEr JO i opE U r krWitE wEll i opE i shAl soN B haBelL 4 2 teeDge U JO aN theN wE shOrl b sO glOdd aN wEn i M preNgtD 2 u JO woT larX an blEvE ME inF xn PiP.”

There was no indispensable necessity for my communicating with Joe by letter, inasmuch as he sat beside me and we were alone. But, I delivered this written communication (slate and all) with my own hand, and Joe received it, as a miracle of erudition.

“I say, Pip, old chap!” cried Joe, opening his blue eyes wide, “what a scholar you are! Ain’t you?”

“I should like to be,” said I, glancing at the slate as he held it: with a misgiving that the writing was rather hilly.

“Why, here’s a J,” said Joe, “and an O equal to anythink! Here’s a J and an O, Pip, and a J-O, Joe.”

I had never heard Joe read aloud to any greater extent than this monosyllable, and I had observed at church last Sunday, when I accidentally held our Prayer-Book upside down, that it seemed to suit his convenience quite as well as if it had been all right. Wishing to embrace the present occasion of finding out whether in teaching Joe, I should have to begin quite at the beginning, I said, “Ah! But read the rest, Joe.”

“The rest, eh, Pip?” said Joe, looking at it with a slowly searching eye. “One, two, three. Why, here’s three J’s, and three O’s, and three J-O, Joes, in it, Pip!”

I leaned over Joe, and, with the aid of my forefinger, read him the whole letter.

“Astonishing!” said Joe, when I had finished. “You ARE a scholar.”

“How do you spell Gargery, Joe?” I asked him, with a modest patronage.

“I don’t spell it at all,” said Joe.

“But supposing you did?”

“It _can’t_ be supposed,” said Joe. “Tho’ I’m uncommon fond of reading, too.”

“Are you, Joe?”

“On-common. Give me,” said Joe, “a good book, or a good newspaper, and sit me down afore a good fire, and I ask no better. Lord!” he continued, after rubbing his knees a little. “When you _do_ come to a J and a O, and says you, ‘Here, at last, is a J-O, Joe,’ how interesting reading is!”

I derived from this last, that Joe’s education, like Steam, was yet in its infancy. Pursuing the subject, I inquired:

“Didn’t you ever go to school, Joe, when you were as little as me?”

“No, Pip.”

“Why didn’t you ever go to school, Joe, when you were as little as me?”

“Well, Pip,” said Joe, taking up the poker, and settling himself to his usual occupation when he was thoughtful, of slowly raking the fire between the lower bars: “I’ll tell you. My father, Pip, he were given to drink, and when he were overtook with drink, he hammered away at my mother most onmerciful. It were a’most the only hammering he did, indeed, ’xcepting at myself. And he hammered at me with a wigor only to be equalled by the wigor with which he didn’t hammer at his anwil. You’re a-listening and understanding, Pip?”

“Yes, Joe.”

“’Consequence, my mother and me we ran away from my father several times; and then my mother she’d go out to work, and she’d say, ‘Joe,’ she’d say, ‘now, please God, you shall have some schooling, child,’ and she’d put me to school. But my father were that good in his heart that he couldn’t abear to be without us. So, he’d come with a most tremenjous crowd and make such a row at the doors of the houses where we was, that they used to be obligated to have no more to do with us and to give us up to him. And then he took us home and hammered us. Which, you see, Pip,” said Joe, pausing in his meditative raking of the fire, and looking at me, “were a drawback on my learning.”

“Certainly, poor Joe!”

“Though mind you, Pip,” said Joe, with a judicial touch or two of the poker on the top bar, “rendering unto all their doo, and maintaining equal justice betwixt man and man, my father were that good in his heart, don’t you see?”

I didn’t see; but I didn’t say so.

“Well!” Joe pursued, “somebody must keep the pot a-biling, Pip, or the pot won’t bile, don’t you know?”

I saw that, and said so.

“’Consequence, my father didn’t make objections to my going to work; so I went to work at my present calling, which were his too, if he would have followed it, and I worked tolerable hard, I assure _you_, Pip. In time I were able to keep him, and I kep him till he went off in a purple leptic fit. And it were my intentions to have had put upon his tombstone that Whatsume’er the failings on his part, Remember reader he were that good in his hart.”

Joe recited this couplet with such manifest pride and careful perspicuity, that I asked him if he had made it himself.

“I made it,” said Joe, “my own self. I made it in a moment. It was like striking out a horseshoe complete, in a single blow. I never was so much surprised in all my life--couldn’t credit my own ed--to tell you the truth, hardly believed it were _my_ own ed. As I was saying, Pip, it were my intentions to have had it cut over him; but poetry costs money, cut it how you will, small or large, and it were not done. Not to mention bearers, all the money that could be spared were wanted for my mother. She were in poor elth, and quite broke. She waren’t long of following, poor soul, and her share of peace come round at last.”

Joe’s blue eyes turned a little watery; he rubbed, first one of them, and then the other, in a most uncongenial and uncomfortable manner, with the round knob on the top of the poker.

“It were but lonesome then,” said Joe, “living here alone, and I got acquainted with your sister. Now, Pip”; Joe looked firmly at me, as if he knew I was not going to agree with him; “your sister is a fine figure of a woman.”

I could not help looking at the fire, in an obvious state of doubt.

“Whatever family opinions, or whatever the world’s opinions, on that subject may be, Pip, your sister is,” Joe tapped the top bar with the poker after every word following, “a--fine--figure--of--a--woman!”

I could think of nothing better to say than “I am glad you think so, Joe.”

“So am I,” returned Joe, catching me up. “_I_ am glad I think so, Pip. A little redness, or a little matter of Bone, here or there, what does it signify to Me?”

I sagaciously observed, if it didn’t signify to him, to whom did it signify?

“Certainly!” assented Joe. “That’s it. You’re right, old chap! When I got acquainted with your sister, it were the talk how she was bringing you up by hand. Very kind of her too, all the folks said, and I said, along with all the folks. As to you,” Joe pursued, with a countenance expressive of saying something very nasty indeed: “if you could have been aware how small and flabby and mean you was, dear me, you’d have formed the most contemptible opinions of yourself!”

Not exactly relishing this, I said, “Never mind me, Joe.”

“But I did mind you, Pip. And when I married your sister, I said, ‘Bring the poor little child. There’s room for him at the forge.’ And now when you take me in hand for learning, Mrs. Joe mustn’t see too much of what we are up to. It must be done, as I may say, on the sly. Well you see, Pip, here we are. That’s about where it lights--here we are. And we are ever the best friends; ain’t us?”

PIP AT MR. PUMBLECHOOK’S

THE first time Pip was away from home was when he went to Mr. Pumblechook’s. Mr. Pumblechook lived in a near-by town, where he kept a seed-store in the High Street. He was a big, solemn-looking man and he had an idea that small boys ought to be instructed at all hours. He thought it was good for them. So he kept at mental arithmetic all the time, firing one question after another at poor Pip. When he got up in the morning, Pip said politely, “Good morning, Mr. Pumblechook.”

Mr. Pumblechook answered, “Boy, what is seven times nine?” At the breakfast-table he would say, “Seven? and four? and eight? and six? and two? and ten?” All the time Mr. Pumblechook was eating bacon and hot rolls, while Pip was scared for fear he couldn’t answer the next question. The hardest thing was to remember about shillings and pence. Mr. Pumblechook would begin with twelve pence make one shilling, and keep on to forty pence make three and four pence. No wonder that Pip was glad to get back to the blacksmith-shop!

DAVID COPPERFIELD

IV

DAVID COPPERFIELD

DICKENS makes David Copperfield tell the story of his life. He begins at the beginning and tells everything that happened to him as a boy, the places where he lived, and the people whom he met. There are few persons whom we can know as thoroughly as David Copperfield. It is all the more lifelike because many of the scenes are taken from the life of Dickens himself.

David’s father had died and his mother had married again. His stepfather, Mr. Murdstone, a gentleman with very black hair and whiskers, was all that a stepfather ought not to be, so that David was happiest when he was away from home.

Happily he had a nurse, who was big and good-natured and really loved David. Her name was Clara Peggotty, but they always called her Peggotty. Her home was in a town by the sea. Mr. Peggotty and his nephew Ham and a despondent old lady named Mrs. Gummidge lived in a houseboat on the shore. David was about seven years old when he went with Clara on a carrier’s cart to visit the Peggottys.

Ham met them as they got off the cart. He was a great big fellow, six feet tall, and he carried David’s box under his arm, while Peggotty trudged along through the sand at his side. There was a fishy smell about everything. There were boats and fishermen’s nets scattered about, and an air of pleasant disorder. Everybody seemed to have all the time there was in the world, and nobody was hurried. Evidently Yarmouth was a very pleasant place for a boy on his vacation. There was plenty of room to play in, and no Mr. Murdstone to make him afraid.

_Copyright by Charles Scribner’s Sons_

LITTLE EM’LY]

“Yon’s our house, Master Davy,” said Ham.

David looked out and saw a barge high and dry on the beach, with a snug little house built upon it. There was a stovepipe out of which the smoke was coming. When they came up, they found everything was as pleasant as could be. There was a door on one side and tiny little windows. On the mantelpiece was a Dutch clock, and the table had all the tea-things on it.

Peggotty opened a door to show David his bedroom. It was in the stern of the boat where the rudder used to be. There was a little window and a little looking-glass framed with oyster-shells and a tiny bed, and there was a blue mug filled with fresh seaweed.

Pretty soon Mr. Peggotty, Peggotty’s older brother and the master of the house, came in. “Glad to see you, sir,” said Mr. Peggotty. “How’s your ma? Did you leave her pretty jolly?”

David gave him to understand that she was as jolly as could be wished.

“Well,” said Mr. Peggotty, “if you can make out here for a fortnut, ’long with her,” pointing to his sister, “and Ham, and little Em’ly, we shall be proud of your company.”

When I spoke of the people who lived on the old boat, I had forgotten to mention little Em’ly, who turned out to be the most important member of the family in David’s eyes. She was a very pretty little girl, who wore a necklace of blue beads, and thought that she would like to be a lady and marry a prince, or even an earl.

“If I was ever a lady,” said Em’ly, “I’d give Uncle Dan,” that was Mr. Peggotty, “a sky-blue coat with diamond buttons, nankeen trousers, a red velvet waistcoat, a cocked hat, a large gold watch, a silver pipe, and a box of money.”

David thought that was very fine, though it was easier for him to think of Em’ly as dressed like a princess in the fairy books than it was to think of big Mr. Peggotty walking about in a red velvet waistcoat and a cocked hat. As for little Em’ly marrying a prince, that seemed all right if David could be the prince.

All of the Peggotty family were so healthy and cheerful that even Mrs. Gummidge, who lived with them, could not make them unhappy. Mrs. Gummidge was a person who felt that it was necessary to have some one to pity, and as she couldn’t pity the Peggottys she got into the habit of pitying herself. She would sit by the fire, and take out an old black handkerchief, and wipe her eyes, and tell her troubles, and then tell how wrong it was in her to tell them.

Mr. Peggotty had just come in from his work, having stopped a few moments at the public house, which was called The Willing Mind. Mrs. Gummidge was wiping her eyes.

“What’s amiss, dame?” said Mr. Peggotty.

“Nothing,” returned Mrs. Gummidge. “You’ve come from The Willing Mind, Dan’l?”

“Why yes, I’ve took a short spell at The Willing Mind to-night,” said Mr. Peggotty.

“I’m sorry I should have drove you there.”

“Drive! I don’t want no driving,” returned Mr. Peggotty. “I only go too ready.”

“Very ready,” said Mrs. Gummidge. “I am sorry that it should be along of me that you’re so ready.”

“Along of you! It ain’t along of you! Don’t you believe a bit of it.”

“Yes, it is,” cried Mrs. Gummidge. “I know what I am. I know I’m a lone lorn creetur’, and not only that everythink goes contrairy with me, but that I go contrairy with everybody. Yes, I feel more than other people do, and I know it more. It’s my misfortune. I feel my troubles, and they make me contrairy. I wish I didn’t feel ’em, but I do. I wish I could be hardened to ’em, but I ain’t. I make the house uncomfortable. I don’t wonder at it. It’s far from right. It ain’t a fit return. I’m a lone lorn creetur’, I’d better not make myself contrairy here. If things must go contrairy with me, and I must go contrairy with myself, let me go away.”

But Mrs. Gummidge had no idea of going away to the poorhouse, as she always threatened; and the Peggottys had no idea of letting her leave their cheerful little home. It was Mrs. Gummidge’s way of carrying on conversation, and they had got used to it.

The delightful visit to Yarmouth came to an end, and after a time Mr. Murdstone sent David to a school near London. We can see the shy little boy starting off for his first journey alone in the big world. The first part of the journey was easy, because it was in a carrier’s cart and the driver was a nice Mr. Barkis, who was in love with Peggotty and liked to talk about her in a very mysterious way, and gave David a message to her, saying that “Barkis is willin’.”

David tells of his conversation with Barkis in the cart. He first looked at the purse which his mother had given him.

* * * * *

It was a stiff leather purse, with a snap, and had three bright shillings in it, which Peggotty had evidently polished up with whitening for my greater delight. But its most precious contents were two half-crowns folded together in a bit of paper, on which was written, in my mother’s hand: “For Davy. With my love.” I was so overcome by this that I asked the carrier to be so good as reach me my pocket-handkerchief again; but he said he thought I had better do without it; and I thought I really had; so I wiped my eyes on my sleeve and stopped myself.

For good, too; though, in consequence of my previous emotions, I was still occasionally seized with a stormy sob. After we had jogged on for some little time, I asked the carrier if he was going all the way.

“All the way where?” inquired the carrier.

“There,” I said.

“Where’s there?” inquired the carrier.

“Near London,” I said.

“Why that horse,” said the carrier, jerking the rein to point him out, “would be deader than pork afore he got over half the ground.”

“Are you only going to Yarmouth, then?” I asked.

“That’s about it,” said the carrier. “And there I shall take you to the stage-cutch, and the stage-cutch that’ll take you to--wherever it is.”

As this was a great deal for the carrier (whose name was Mr. Barkis) to say--he being, as I observed in a former chapter, of a phlegmatic temperament, and not at all conversational--I offered him a cake as a mark of attention, which he ate at one gulp, exactly like an elephant, and which made no more impression on his big face than it would have done on an elephant’s.

“Did _she_ make ’em, now?” said Mr. Barkis, always leaning forward, in his slouching way, on the footboard of the cart with an arm on each knee.

“Peggotty, do you mean, sir?”

“Ah!” said Mr. Barkis. “Her.”

“Yes. She makes all our pastry, and does all our cooking.”

“Do she though?” said Mr. Barkis.

He made up his mouth as if to whistle, but he didn’t whistle. He sat looking at the horse’s ears, as if he saw something new there; and sat so, for a considerable time. By-and-by, he said:

“No sweethearts, I b’lieve?”

“Sweetmeats did you say, Mr. Barkis?” For I thought he wanted something else to eat, and had pointedly alluded to that description of refreshment.

“Hearts,” said Mr. Barkis. “Sweethearts; no person walks with her!”

“With Peggotty?”

“Ah!” he said. “Her.”

“Oh, no. She never had a sweetheart.”

“Didn’t she though!” said Mr. Barkis.

Again he made up his mouth to whistle, and again he didn’t whistle, but sat looking at the horse’s ears.

“So she makes,” said Mr. Barkis, after a long interval of reflection, “all the apple parsties, and doos all the cooking, do she?”

I replied that such was the fact.

“Well. I’ll tell you what,” said Mr. Barkis. “P’raps you might be writin’ to her?”

“I shall certainly write to her,” I rejoined.

“Ah!” he said, slowly turning his eyes towards me. “Well! If you was writin’ to her, p’raps you’d recollect to say that Barkis was willin’; would you?”

“That Barkis is willing,” I repeated, innocently. “Is that all the message?”

“Ye-es,” he said, considering. “Ye-es. Barkis is willin’.”

“But you will be at Blunderstone again to-morrow, Mr. Barkis,” I said, faltering a little at the idea of my being far away from it then, “and could give your own message so much better.”

As he repudiated this suggestion, however, with a jerk of his head, and once more confirmed his previous request by saying, with profound gravity, “Barkis is willin’. That’s the message,” I readily undertook its transmission. While I was waiting for the coach in the hotel at Yarmouth that very afternoon, I procured a sheet of paper and an inkstand, and wrote a note to Peggotty, which ran thus: “My dear Peggotty. I have come here safe. Barkis is willing. My love to mama. Yours affectionately. P. S. He says he particularly wants you to know--_Barkis is willing_.”

When I had taken this commission on myself prospectively, Mr. Barkis relapsed into perfect silence; and I, feeling quite worn out by all that had happened lately, lay down on a sack in the cart and fell asleep.

It was in the inn at Yarmouth that David fell in with a jolly waiter who ate up his dinner for him. David was very much afraid of doing something which he ought not to do. Everything seemed so big and strange.

THE LITTLE BOY AND THE HUNGRY WAITER

THE waiter brought me some chops, and vegetables, and took the covers off in such a bouncing manner that I was afraid I must have given him some offence. But he greatly relieved my mind by putting a chair for me at the table, and saying, very affably, “Now, six-foot! come on!”

I thanked him, and took my seat at the board; but found it extremely difficult to handle my knife and fork with anything like dexterity, or to avoid splashing myself with the gravy, while he was standing opposite, staring so hard, and making me blush in the most dreadful manner every time I caught his eye. After watching me into the second chop, he said:

“There’s half a pint of ale for you. Will you have it now?”

I thanked him and said “Yes.” Upon which he poured it out of a jug into a large tumbler, and held it up against the light, and made it look beautiful.

“My eye!” he said. “It seems a good deal, don’t it?”

“It does seem a good deal,” I answered with a smile. For it was quite delightful to me to find him so pleasant. He was a twinkling-eyed, pimple-faced man, with his hair standing upright all over his head; and as he stood with one arm akimbo, holding up the glass to the light with the other hand, he looked quite friendly.

“There was a gentleman here, yesterday,” he said, “a stout gentleman, by the name of Topsawyer--perhaps you know him!”

“No,” I said, “I don’t think----”

“In breeches and gaiters, broad-brimmed hat, gray coat, speckled choker,” said the waiter.

“No,” I said bashfully, “I haven’t the pleasure----”

“He came in here,” said the waiter, looking at the light through the tumbler, “ordered a glass of this ale--_would_ order it--I told him not--drank it, and fell dead. It was too old for him. It oughtn’t to be drawn; that’s the fact.”

I was very much shocked to hear of this melancholy accident, and said I thought I had better have some water.

“Why you see,” said the waiter, still looking at the light through the tumbler, with one of his eyes shut up, “our people don’t like things being ordered and left. It offends ’em. But _I’ll_ drink it, if you like. I’m used to it, and use is everything. I don’t think it’ll hurt me, if I throw my head back, and take it off quick. Shall I?”

I replied that he would much oblige me by drinking it, if he thought he could do it safely, but by no means otherwise. When he did throw his head back, and take it off quickly, I had a horrible fear, I confess, of seeing him meet the fate of the lamented Mr. Topsawyer, and fall lifeless on the carpet. But it didn’t hurt him. On the contrary, I thought he seemed the fresher for it.

“What have we got here?” he said, putting a fork into my dish. “Not chops?”

“Chops,” I said.

“Lord bless my soul!” he exclaimed. “I didn’t know they were chops. Why, a chop’s the very thing to take off the bad effects of that beer! Ain’t it lucky?”

So he took a chop by the bone in one hand, and a potato in the other, and ate away with a very good appetite, to my extreme satisfaction. He afterwards took another chop, and another potato; and after that another chop and another potato. When he had done, he brought me a pudding, and having set it before me, seemed to ruminate, and to become absent in his mind for some moments.

“How’s the pie?” he said, rousing himself.

“It’s a pudding,” I made answer.

“Pudding!” he exclaimed. “Why, bless me, so it is! What!” looking at it nearer. “You don’t mean to say it’s a batter-pudding!”

“Yes, it is indeed.”

“Why, a batter-pudding,” he said, taking up a tablespoon, “is my favorite pudding! Ain’t that lucky? Come on, little ’un, and let’s see who’ll get most.”

The waiter certainly got most. He entreated me more than once to come in and win, but what with his tablespoon to my teaspoon, his despatch to my despatch, and his appetite to my appetite, I was left far behind at the first mouthful, and had no chance with him. I never saw any one enjoy a pudding so much, I think; and he laughed, when it was all gone, as if his enjoyment of it lasted still.

Finding him so very friendly and companionable, it was then that I asked for the pen and ink and paper to write to Peggotty. He not only brought it immediately, but was good enough to look over me while I wrote the letter. When I had finished it, he asked me where I was going to school.

I said, “Near London,” which was all I knew.

“Oh! my eye!” he said, looking very low-spirited. “I am sorry for that.”

“Why?” I asked him.

“Oh, Lord!” he said, shaking his head, “that’s the school where they broke the boy’s ribs--two ribs--a little boy he was. I should say he was--let me see--how old are you, about?”

I told him between eight and nine.

“That’s just his age,” he said. “He was eight years and six months old when they broke his first rib; eight years and eight months old when they broke his second, and did for him.”

I could not disguise from myself, or from the waiter, that this was an uncomfortable coincidence, and inquired how it was done. His answer was not cheering to my spirits, for it consisted of two dismal words: “With whopping.”

The blowing of the coach horn in the yard was a seasonable diversion, which made me get up and hesitatingly inquire, in the mingled pride and diffidence of having a purse (which I took out of my pocket), if there were anything to pay.

“There’s a sheet of letter-paper,” he returned. “Did you ever buy a sheet of letter-paper?”

I could not remember that I ever had.

“It’s dear,” he said, “on account of the duty. Three-pence. That’s the way we’re taxed in this country. There’s nothing else, except the waiter. Never mind the ink. _I_ lose by that.”

“What should you--what should I--how much ought I to--what would it be right to pay the waiter, if you please?” I stammered, blushing.

“If I hadn’t a family, and that family hadn’t the cowpock,” said the waiter, “I wouldn’t take a sixpence. If I didn’t support an aged pairint and a lovely sister,”--here the waiter was greatly agitated--“I wouldn’t take a farthing. If I had a good place, and was treated well here, I should beg acceptance of a trifle, instead of taking of it. But I live on broken wittles--and I sleep on the coals”--here the waiter burst into tears.

I was very much concerned for his misfortunes, and felt that any recognition short of ninepence would be mere brutality and hardness of heart. Therefore I gave him one of my three bright shillings, which he received with much humility and veneration, and spun up with his thumb, directly afterwards, to try the goodness of.

WILKINS MICAWBER JUNIOR AND HIS PARENTS

V

WILKINS MICAWBER JUNIOR AND HIS PARENTS