'I'll buy a book,' said I, 'with a good scheme of this art in it;I'll work at it at the Commons, where I haven't half enough to do;I'll take down the speeches in our court for practice - Traddles, my dear fellow, I'll master it!'
'Dear me,' said Traddles, opening his eyes, 'I had no idea you were such a determined character, Copperfield!'
I don't know how he should have had, for it was new enough to me.
I passed that off, and brought Mr. **** on the carpet.
'You see,' said Mr. ****, wistfully, 'if I could exert myself, Mr. Traddles - if I could beat a drum- or blow anything!'
Poor fellow! I have little doubt he would have preferred such an employment in his heart to all others. Traddles, who would not have smiled for the world, replied composedly:
'But you are a very good penman, sir. You told me so, Copperfield?'
'Excellent!' said I. And indeed he was. He wrote with extraordinary neatness.
'Don't you think,' said Traddles, 'you could copy writings, sir, if I got them for you?'
Mr. **** looked doubtfully at me. 'Eh, Trotwood?'
I shook my head. Mr. **** shook his, and sighed. 'Tell him about the Memorial,' said Mr. ****.
I explained to Traddles that there was a difficulty in keeping King Charles the First out of Mr. ****'s manuscripts; Mr. **** in the meanwhile looking very deferentially and seriously at Traddles, and sucking his thumb.
'But these writings, you know, that I speak of, are already drawn up and finished,' said Traddles after a little consideration. 'Mr. **** has nothing to do with them. Wouldn't that make a difference, Copperfield? At all events, wouldn't it be well to try?'
This gave us new hope. Traddles and I laying our heads together apart, while Mr. **** anxiously watched us from his chair, we concocted a scheme in virtue of which we got him to work next day, with triumphant success.
On a table by the window in Buckingham Street, we set out the work Traddles procured for him - which was to make, I forget how many copies of a legal document about some right of way - and on another table we spread the last unfinished original of the great Memorial.
Our instructions to Mr. **** were that he should copy exactly what he had before him, without the least departure from the original;and that when he felt it necessary to make the slightest allusion to King Charles the First, he should fly to the Memorial. We exhorted him to be resolute in this, and left my aunt to observe him. My aunt reported to us, afterwards, that, at first, he was like a man playing the kettle-drums, and constantly divided his attentions between the two; but that, finding this confuse and fatigue him, and having his copy there, plainly before his eyes, he soon sat at it in an orderly business-like manner, and postponed the Memorial to a more convenient time. In a word, although we took great care that he should have no more to do than was good for him, and although he did not begin with the beginning of a week, he earned by the following Saturday night ten shillings and nine-pence; and never, while I live, shall I forget his going about to all the shops in the neighbourhood to change this treasure into sixpences, or his bringing them to my aunt arranged in the form of a heart upon a waiter, with tears of joy and pride in his eyes. He was like one under the propitious influence of a charm, from the moment of his being usefully employed; and if there were a happy man in the world, that Saturday night, it was the grateful creature who thought my aunt the most wonderful woman in existence, and me the most wonderful young man.
'No starving now, Trotwood,' said Mr. ****, shaking hands with me in a corner. 'I'll provide for her, Sir!' and he flourished his ten fingers in the air, as if they were ten banks.
I hardly know which was the better pleased, Traddles or I. 'It really,' said Traddles, suddenly, taking a letter out of his pocket, and giving it to me, 'put Mr. Micawber quite out of my head!'
The letter (Mr. Micawber never missed any possible opportunity of writing a letter) was addressed to me, 'By the kindness of T.
Traddles, Esquire, of the Inner Temple.' It ran thus: -'MY DEAR COPPERFIELD, 'You may possibly not be unprepared to receive the intimation that something has turned up. I may have mentioned to you on a former occasion that I was in expectation of such an event.
'I am about to establish myself in one of the provincial towns of our favoured island (where the society may be described as a happy admixture of the agricultural and the clerical), in immediate connexion with one of the learned professions. Mrs. Micawber and our offspring will accompany me. Our ashes, at a future period, will probably be found commingled in the cemetery attached to a venerable pile, for which the spot to which I refer has acquired a reputation, shall I say from China to Peru?
'In bidding adieu to the modern Babylon, where we have undergone many vicissitudes, I trust not ignobly, Mrs. Micawber and myself cannot disguise from our minds that we part, it may be for years and it may be for ever, with an individual linked by strong associations to the altar of our domestic life. If, on the eve of such a departure, you will accompany our mutual friend, Mr. Thomas Traddles, to our present abode, and there reciprocate the wishes natural to the occasion, you will confer a Boon 'On 'One 'Who 'Is 'Ever yours, 'WILKINS MICAWBER.'
I was glad to find that Mr. Micawber had got rid of his dust and ashes, and that something really had turned up at last. Learning from Traddles that the invitation referred to the evening then wearing away, I expressed my readiness to do honour to it; and we went off together to the lodging which Mr. Micawber occupied as Mr. Mortimer, and which was situated near the top of the Gray's Inn Road.