David Copperfield
I have been under the necessity of assuming a garb from
which my natural instincts recoil - I allude to spectacles
- and possessing myself of a cognomen, to which I can es-
tablish no legitimate pretensions. All I have to say on that
score is, that the cloud has passed from the dreary scene,
and the God of Day is once more high upon the mountain
tops. On Monday next, on the arrival of the four o’clock af-
ternoon coach at Canterbury, my foot will be on my native
heath - my name, Micawber!’
Mr. Micawber resumed his seat on the close of these re-
marks, and drank two glasses of punch in grave succession.
He then said with much solemnity:
‘One thing more I have to do, before this separation is
complete, and that is to perform an act of justice. My friend
Mr. Thomas Traddles has, on two several occasions, ‘put
his name’, if I may use a common expression, to bills of ex-
change for my accommodation. On the first occasion Mr.
Thomas Traddles was left - let me say, in short, in the lurch.
The fulfilment of the second has not yet arrived. The amount
of the first obligation,’ here Mr. Micawber carefully referred
to papers, ‘was, I believe, twenty-three, four, nine and a half,
of the second, according to my entry of that transaction,
eighteen, six, two. These sums, united, make a total, if my
calculation is correct, amounting to forty-one, ten, eleven
and a half. My friend Copperfield will perhaps do me the
favour to check that total?’
I did so and found it correct.
‘To leave this metropolis,’ said Mr. Micawber, ‘and my
friend Mr. Thomas Traddles, without acquitting myself of
