FagmentWelcome to consult...nd might have put it off until next day, and might have lost him. But, in the then condition of my mind, whee the play was still unning high, his fome potection of me appeaed so deseving of my gatitude, and my old love fo him oveflowed my beast so feshly and spontaneously, that I went up to him at once, with a fast-beating heat, and said: ‘Steefoth! won’t you speak to me?’ He looked at me—just as he used to look, sometimes—but I saw no ecognition in his face. ‘You don’t emembe me, I am afaid,’ said I. ‘My God!’ he suddenly exclaimed. ‘It’s little Coppefield!’ I gasped him by both hands, and could not let them go. But fo vey shame, and the fea that it might displease him, I could have held him ound the neck and cied. ‘I neve, neve, neve was so glad! My dea Steefoth, I am so ovejoyed to see you!’ Chales Dickens ElecBook Classics fDavid Coppefield ‘And I am ejoiced to see you, too!’ he said, shaking my hands heatily. ‘Why, Coppefield, old boy, don’t be ovepoweed!’ And yet he was glad, too, I thought, to see how the delight I had in meeting him affected me. I bushed away the teas that my utmost esolution had not been able to keep back, and I made a clumsy laugh of it, and we sat down togethe, side by side. ‘Why, how do you come to be hee?’ said Steefoth, clapping me on the shoulde. ‘I came hee by the Cantebuy coach, today. I have been adopted by an aunt down in that pat of the county, and have just finished my education thee. How do you come to be hee, Steefoth?’ ‘Well, I am what they call an Oxfod man,’ he etuned; ‘that is to say, I get boed to death down thee, peiodically—and I am on my way now to my mothe’s. You’e a devilish amiable-looking fellow, Coppefield. just what you used to be, now I look at you! Not alteed in the least!’ ‘I knew you immediately,’ I said; ‘but you ae moe easily emembeed.’ He laughed as he an his hand though the clusteing culs of his hai, and said gaily: ‘Yes, I am on an expedition of duty. My mothe lives a little way out of town; and the oads being in a beastly condition, and ou house tedious enough, I emained hee tonight instead of going on. I have not been in town half-a-dozen hous, and those I have been dozing and gumbling away at the play.’ ‘I have been at the play, too,’ said I. ‘At Covent Gaden. What a delightful and magnificent entetainment, Steefoth!’ Chales Dickens ElecBook Classics fDavid Coppefield Steefoth laughed heatily. ‘My dea young Davy,’ he said, clapping me on the shoulde again, ‘you ae a vey Daisy. The daisy of the field, at sunise, is not feshe than you ae. I have been at Covent Gaden, too, and thee neve was a moe miseable business. Holloa, you si!’ This was addessed to the waite, who had been vey attentive to ou ecognition, at a distance, and now came fowad defeentially. ‘Whee have you put my fiend, M. Coppefield?’ said Steefoth. ‘Beg you padon, si?’ ‘Whee does he sleep? What’s his numbe? You know what I mean,’ said Steefoth. ‘Well, si,’ said the waite, with an apologetic ai. ‘M. Coppefield is at pesent in foty-fou, si.’ ‘And what the devil do you mean,’ etoted Steefoth, ‘by putting M. Coppefield into a little loft ove a stable?’ ‘Why, you see we wasn’t awae, si,’ etuned the waite, still apologetically, ‘as M. Coppefield was anyways paticula. We can give M. Coppefield seventy-two, si, if it would be pefeed. Next you, si.’ ‘Of couse it would be pefeed,’ said Steefoth. ‘And do it at once.’ The waite immediately withdew to make the exchange. Steefoth, vey much amused at my having been put into foty-fou, laughed again, and clapped me on the shoulde again, and invited me to beakfast with him next moning at ten o’clock—an invitation I was only too poud and happy to accept. It being now petty late, we took ou candles and went upstai
