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lower room on the ground floor, where Uriah Heep had
been of old accustomed to sit, Mr. Micawber plying his pen
with great assiduity. He was dressed in a legal-looking suit
of black, and loomed, burly and large, in that small office.
Mr. Micawber was extremely glad to see me, but a little
confused too. He would have conducted me immediately
into the presence of Uriah, but I declined.
‘I know the house of old, you recollect,’ said I, ‘and will
find my way upstairs. How do you like the law, Mr. Micaw-
ber?’
‘My dear Copperfield,’ he replied. ‘To a man possessed of
the higher imaginative powers, the objection to legal stud-
ies is the amount of detail which they involve. Even in our
professional correspondence,’ said Mr. Micawber, glancing
at some letters he was writing, ‘the mind is not at liberty to
soar to any exalted form of expression. Still, it is a great pur-
suit. A great pursuit!’
He then told me that he had become the tenant of Uriah
Heep’s old house; and that Mrs. Micawber would be de-
lighted to receive me, once more, under her own roof.
‘It is humble,’ said Mr. Micawber, ‘- to quote a favourite
expression of my friend Heep; but it may prove the stepping-
stone to more ambitious domiciliary accommodation.’
I asked him whether he had reason, so far, to be satis-
fied with his friend Heep’s treatment of him? He got up to
ascertain if the door were close shut, before he replied, in a
lower voice:
‘My dear Copperfield, a man who labours under the
pressure of pecuniary embarrassments, is, with the gen-