‘Ma’am,’ returned Mr. Micawber, with a bow, ‘you are very obliging: and what are you doing, Copperfield? Still in the wine trade?’

I was excessively anxious to get Mr. Micawber away; and replied, with my hat in my hand, and a very red face, I have no doubt, that I was a pupil at Doctor Strong’s.

‘A pupil?’ said Mr. Micawber, raising his eyebrows. ‘I am extremely happy to hear it. Although a mind like my friend Copperfield’s’ — to Uriah and Mrs. Heep — ‘does not require that cultivation which, without his knowledge of men and things, it would require, still it is a rich soil teeming with latent vegetation — in short,’ said Mr. Micawber, smiling, in another burst of confidence, ‘it is