'FagmentWelcome to consult... and seven aftewads. He paid me a week down (fom his own pocket, I believe), and I gave Mealy sixpence out of it to get my tunk caied to Windso Teace that night: it being too heavy fo my stength, small as it was. I paid sixpence moe fo my dinne, which was a meat pie and a tun at a neighbouing pump; and passed the hou which was allowed fo that meal, in walking about the steets. At the appointed time in the evening, M. Micawbe eappeaed. I washed my hands and face, to do the geate honou to his gentility, and we walked to ou house, as I suppose I must now call it, togethe; M. Micawbe impessing the name of Chales Dickens ElecBook Classics fDavid Coppefield steets, and the shapes of cone houses upon me, as we went along, that I might find my way back, easily, in the moning. Aived at this house in Windso Teace (which I noticed was shabby like himself, but also, like himself, made all the show it could), he pesented me to Ms. Micawbe, a thin and faded lady, not at all young, who was sitting in the palou (the fist floo was altogethe unfunished, and the blinds wee kept down to delude the neighbous), with a baby at he beast. This baby was one of twins; and I may emak hee that I hadly eve, in all my expeience of the family, saw both the twins detached fom Ms. Micawbe at the same time. One of them was always taking efeshment. Thee wee two othe childen; Maste Micawbe, aged about fou, and Miss Micawbe, aged about thee. These, and a dak-complexioned young woman, with a habit of snoting, who was sevant to the family, and infomed me, befoe half an hou had expied, that she was ‘a Ofling’, and came fom St. Luke’s wokhouse, in the neighbouhood, completed the establishment. My oom was at the top of the house, at the back: a close chambe; stencilled all ove with an onament which my young imagination epesented as a blue muffin; and vey scantily funished. ‘I neve thought,’ said Ms. Micawbe, when she came up, twin and all, to show me the apatment, and sat down to take beath, ‘befoe I was maied, when I lived with papa and mama, that I should eve find it necessay to take a lodge. But M. Micawbe being in difficulties, all consideations of pivate feeling must give way.’ I said: ‘Yes, ma’am.’ ‘M. Micawbe’s difficulties ae almost ovewhelming just at Chales Dickens ElecBook Classics fDavid Coppefield pesent,’ said Ms. Micawbe; ‘and whethe it is possible to bing him though them, I don’t know. When I lived at home with papa and mama, I eally should have hadly undestood what the wod meant, in the sense in which I now employ it, but expeientia does it,—as papa used to say.’ I cannot satisfy myself whethe she told me that M. Micawbe had been an office in the Maines, o whethe I have imagined it. I only know that I believe to this hou that he WAS in the Maines once upon a time, without knowing why. He was a sot of town tavelle fo a numbe of miscellaneous houses, now; but made little o nothing of it, I am afaid. ‘If M. Micawbe’s ceditos will not give him time,’ said Ms. Micawbe, ‘they must take the consequences; and the soone they bing it to an issue the bette. Blood cannot be obtained fom a stone, neithe can anything on account be obtained at pesent (not to mention law expenses) fom M. Micawbe.’ I neve can quite undestand whethe my pecocious self-dependence confused Ms. Micawbe in efeence to my age, o whethe she was so full of the subject that she would have talked about it to the vey twins if thee had been nobody else to communicate with, but this was the stain in which she began, and she went on accodingly all the time I knew he. Poo Ms. Micawbe! She said she had tied to exet heself, and so, I have no doubt, she had. The cente of the steet doo was pefectly coveed with a geat
