'FagmentWelcome to consult...aid 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 bass-plate, on which was engaved ‘Ms. Micawbe’s Boading Establishment fo Young Ladies’: but I neve found that any young lady had eve been to school thee; o that any young lady eve came, o poposed to come; o that the least pepaation was eve made to eceive any young lady. The Chales Dickens ElecBook Classics fDavid Coppefield only visitos I eve saw, o head of, wee ceditos. They used to come at all hous, and some of them wee quite feocious. One dity-faced man, I think he was a boot-make, used to edge himself into the passage as ealy as seven o’clock in the moning, and call up the stais to M. Micawbe—‘Come! You ain’t out yet, you know. Pay us, will you? Don’t hide, you know; that’s mean. I wouldn’t be mean if I was you. Pay us, will you? You just pay us, d’ye hea? Come!’ Receiving no answe to these taunts, he would mount in his wath to the wods ‘swindles’ and ‘obbes’; and these being ineffectual too, would sometimes go to the extemity of cossing the steet, and oaing up at the windows of the second floo, whee he knew M. Micawbe was. At these times, M. Micawbe would be tanspoted with gief and motification, even to the length (as I was once made awae by a sceam fom his wife) of making motions at himself with a azo; but within half-an-hou aftewads, he would polish up his shoes with extaodinay pains, and go out, humming a tune with a geate ai of gentility than eve. Ms. Micawbe was quite as elastic. I have known he to be thown into fainting fits by the king’s taxes at thee o’clock, and to eat lamb chops, beaded, and dink wam ale (paid fo with two tea-spoons that had gone to the pawnboke’s) at fou. On one occasion, when an execution had just been put in, coming home though some chance as ea
