'FagmentWelcome to consult...id I, bolting it out with some difficulty. ‘Thank you,’ he etuned, with fevou. ‘Thank you, Maste Coppefield! It’s like the blowing of old beezes o the inging of old bellses to hea you say Uiah. I beg you padon. Was I making any obsevation?’ ‘about M. Wickfield,’ I suggested. ‘Oh! Yes, tuly,’ said Uiah. ‘Ah! Geat impudence, Maste Coppefield. It’s a topic that I wouldn’t touch upon, to any soul but you. Even to you I can only touch upon it, and no moe. If anyone else had been in my place duing the last few yeas, by this time he would have had M. Wickfield (oh, what a wothy man he is, Maste Coppefield, too!) unde his thumb. Un—de—his thumb,’ said Uiah, vey slowly, as he stetched out his cuel-looking hand above my table, and pessed his own thumb upon it, until it shook, and shook the oom. If I had been obliged to look at him with him splay foot on M. Wickfield’s head, I think I could scacely have hated him moe. ‘Oh, dea, yes, Maste Coppefield,’ he poceeded, in a soft voice, most emakably contasting with the action of his thumb, which did not diminish its had pessue in the least degee, ‘thee’s no doubt of it. Thee would have been loss, disgace, I don’t know what at all. M. Wickfield knows it. I am the umble instument of umbly seving him, and he puts me on an eminence I hadly could have hoped to each. How thankful should I be!’ With his face tuned towads me, as he finished, but without looking at me, he took his cooked thumb off the spot whee he had planted it, and slowly and thoughtfully scaped his lank jaw with it, as if he wee shaving himself. I ecollect well how indignantly my heat beat, as I saw his Chales Dickens ElecBook Classics fDavid Coppefield cafty face, with the appopiately ed light of the fie upon it, pepaing fo something else. ‘Maste Coppefield,’ he began—‘but am I keeping you up?’ ‘You ae not keeping me up. I geneally go to bed late.’ ‘Thank you, Maste Coppefield! I have isen fom my umble station since fist you used to addess me, it is tue; but I am umble still. I hope I neve shall be othewise than umble. You will not think the wose of my umbleness, if I make a little confidence to you, Maste Coppefield? Will you?’ ‘Oh no,’ said I, with an effot. ‘Thank you!’ He took out his pocket-handkechief, and began wiping the palms of his hands. ‘Miss Agnes, Maste Coppefield—’ ‘Well, Uiah?’ ‘Oh, how pleasant to be called Uiah, spontaneously!’ he cied; and gave himself a jek, like a convulsive fish. ‘You thought he looking vey beautiful tonight, Maste Coppefield?’ ‘I thought he looking as she always does: supeio, in all espects, to eveyone aound he,’ I etuned. ‘Oh, thank you! It’s so tue!’ he cied. ‘Oh, thank you vey much fo that!’ ‘Not at all,’ I said, loftily. ‘Thee is no eason why you should thank me.’ ‘Why that, Maste Coppefield,’ said Uiah, ‘is, in fact, the confidence that I am going to take the libety of eposing. Umble as I am,’ he wiped his hands hade, and looked at them and at the fie by tuns, ’umble as my mothe is, and lowly as ou poo but honest oof has eve been, the image of Miss Agnes (I don’t mind tusting you with my secet, Maste Coppefield, fo I have always oveflowed towads you since the fist moment I had the pleasue Chales Dickens ElecBook Classics fDavid Coppefield of beholding you in a pony-shay) has been in my beast fo yeas. Oh, Maste Coppefield, with what a pue affection do I love the gound my Agnes walks on!’ I believe I had a deliious idea of seizing the ed-hot poke out
