‘Not exactly so, sir.But I should think he might be here tomorrow,as he has not been here today.’
‘Is he coming up from Oxford?’
‘I beg, sir,’ he returned respectfully,‘that you will be seated, and allow me to do this.’ With which he took the fork from my unresisting hand,and bent over the gridiron,as if his whole attention were concentrated on it.
We should not have been much discomposed, I dare say,by the appearance of Steerforth himself,but we became in a moment the meekest of the meek before his respectable serving-man. Mr. Micawber, humming a tune, to show that he was quite at ease, subsided into his chair, with the handle of a hastily concealed fork sticking out of the bosom of his coat, as if he had stabbed himself. Mrs. Micawber put on her brown gloves, and assumed a genteel languor. Traddles ran his greasy hands through his hair, and stood it bolt upright, and stared in confusion on the table-cloth. As for me, I was a mere infant at the head of my own table; and hardly ventured to glance at the respectable phenomenon, who had come from Heaven knows where, to put my establishment to rights.
Meanwhile he took the mutton off the gridiron,and gravely handed it round. We all took some,but our appreciation of it was gone,and we merely made a show of eating it.As we severally pushed away our plates,he noiselessly removed them, and set on the cheese.He took that off, too, when it was done with;cleared the table; piled everything on the dumb-waiter;gave us our wine-glasses; and, of his own accord,wheeled the dumb-waiter into the pantry.All this was done in a perfect manner,and he never raised his eyes from what he was about.Yet his very elbows, when he had his back towards me,seemed to teem with the expression of his fixed opinion that I was extremely young.
‘Can I do anything more, sir?’
I thanked him and said, No;but would he take no dinner himself?
‘None, I am obliged to you, sir.’
‘Is Mr. Steerforth coming from Oxford?’
‘I beg your pardon, sir?’
‘Is Mr. Steerforth coming from Oxford?’
‘I should imagine that he might be here tomorrow, sir.I rather thought he might have been here today, sir.The mistake is mine, no doubt, sir.’
‘If you should see him first--’ said I.
‘If you’ll excuse me, sir,I don’t think I shall see him first.’
‘In case you do,’ said I,‘pray say that I am sorry he was not here today,as an old schoolfellow of his was here.’
‘Indeed, sir!’ and he divided a bow between me and Traddles,with a glance at the latter.
He was moving softly to the door, when,in a forlorn hope of saying something naturally--which I never could,to this man--I said:
‘Oh!Littimer!’
‘Sir!’
‘Did you remain long at Yarmouth, that time?’
‘Not particularly so, sir.’
‘You saw the boat completed?’
‘Yes, sir. I remained behind on purpose to see the boat completed. ’
‘I know!’ He raised his eyes to mine respectfully.
‘Mr. Steerforth has not seen it yet, I suppose?’
‘I really can’t say, sir.I think--but I really can’t say, sir.I wish you good night, sir.’
He comprehended everybody present,in the respectful bow with which he followed these words,and disappeared. My visitors seemed to breathe more freely when he was gone;but my own relief was very great,for besides the constraint,arising from that extraordinary sense of being at a disadvantage which I always had in this man’s presence, my conscience had embarrassed me with whispers that I had mistrusted his master, and I could not repress a vague uneasy dread that he might find it out. How was it, having so little in reality to conceal, that I always DID feel as if this man were finding me out?
Mr. Micawber roused me from this reflection,which was blended with a certain remorseful apprehension of seeing Steerforth himself, by bestowing many encomiums on the absent Littimer as a most respectable fellow, and a thoroughly admirable servant. Mr. Micawber, I may remark, had taken his full share of the general bow, and had received it with infinite condescension.
‘But punch, my dear Copperfield,’ said Mr. Micawber,tasting it, ‘like time and tide, waits for no man. Ah!it is at the present moment in high flavour. My love,will you give me your opinion?’
Mrs. Micawber pronounced it excellent.
‘Then I will drink,’ said Mr. Micawber,‘if my friend Copperfield will permit me to take that social liberty,to the days when my friend Copperfield and myself were younger,and fought our way in the world side by side.I may say, of myself and Copperfield,in words we have sung together before now, that
We twa hae run about the braes And pu’d the gowans’ fine
--in a figurative point of view--on several occasions.I am not exactly aware,’ said Mr. Micawber,with the old roll in his voice,and the old indescribable air of saying something genteel,‘what gowans may be,but I have no doubt that Copperfield and myself would frequently have taken a pull at them, if it had been feasible.’
Mr. Micawber, at the then present moment,took a pull at his punch. So we all did:Traddles evidently lost in wondering at what distant time Mr.Micawber and I could have been comrades in the battle of the world.
‘Ahem!’ said Mr. Micawber, clearing his throat,and warming with the punch and with the fire. ‘My dear, another glass?’
Mrs. Micawber said it must be very little;but we couldn’t allow that, so it was a glassful.
‘As we are quite confidential here, Mr. Copperfield,’ said Mrs. Micawber, sipping her punch, ‘Mr.Traddles being a part of our domesticity,I should much like to have your opinion on Mr.Micawber’s prospects. For corn,’ said Mrs.Micawber argumentatively,‘as I have repeatedly said to Mr. Micawber,may be gentlemanly, but it is not remunerative.Commission to the extent of two and ninepence in a fortnight cannot,however limited our ideas, be considered remunerative.’
We were all agreed upon that.
‘Then,’ said Mrs. Micawber,who prided herself on taking a clear view of things,and keeping Mr. Micawber straight by her woman’s wisdom,when he might otherwise go a little crooked,‘then I ask myself this question.If corn is not to be relied upon, what is?Are coals to be relied upon?Not at all. We have turned our attention to that experiment,on the suggestion of my family,and we find it fallacious.’
Mr. Micawber, leaning back in his chair with his hands in his pockets,eyed us aside, and nodded his head,as much as to say that the case was very clearly put.