David Copperfield by Charles Dickens Chapter 14 Page 33

I am responsible for them to myself, I act upon them, and I say no more about them. It is enough that I place this boy under the eye of a friend of my own, in a respectable business; that it does not please him; that he runs away from it; makes himself a common vagabond about the country; and comes here, in rags, to appeal to you, Miss Trotwood. I wish to set before you, honourably, the exact consequences — so far as they are within my knowledge — of your abetting him in this appeal.’

‘But about the respectable business first,’ said my aunt.

‘If he had been your own boy, you would have put him to it, just the same, I suppose?’

‘If he had been my brother’s own boy,’ returned Miss Murdstone, striking in,