David Copperfield
She then selected two or three of the little instruments,
and a little bottle, and asked (to my surprise) if the table
would bear. On Steerforth’s replying in the affirmative, she
pushed a chair against it, and begging the assistance of my
hand, mounted up, pretty nimbly, to the top, as if it were a
stage.
‘If either of you saw my ankles,’ she said, when she was
safely elevated, ‘say so, and I’ll go home and destroy my-
self!’
‘I did not,’ said Steerforth.
‘I did not,’ said I.
‘Well then,’ cried Miss Mowcher,’ I’ll consent to live. Now,
ducky, ducky, ducky, come to Mrs. Bond and be killed.’
This was an invocation to Steerforth to place himself un-
der her hands; who, accordingly, sat himself down, with his
back to the table, and his laughing face towards me, and
submitted his head to her inspection, evidently for no oth-
er purpose than our entertainment. To see Miss Mowcher
standing over him, looking at his rich profusion of brown
hair through a large round magnifying glass, which she
took out of her pocket, was a most amazing spectacle.
‘You’re a pretty fellow!’ said Miss Mowcher, after a brief
inspection. ‘You’d be as bald as a friar on the top of your
head in twelve months, but for me. just half a minute, my
young friend, and we’ll give you a polishing that shall keep
your curls on for the next ten years!’
With this, she tilted some of the contents of the little
bottle on to one of the little bits of flannel, and, again im-
parting some of the virtues of that preparation to one of the