He seemed very much amused, and laughed as heartily as it was in his nature to laugh.

After some scraping of his chin with his hand, he went on to say, with his eyes cast downward — still scraping, very slowly:

‘When I was but an umble clerk, she always looked down upon me. She was for ever having my Agnes backwards and forwards at her ouse, and she was for ever being a friend to you, Master Copperfield; but I was too far beneath her, myself, to be noticed.’

‘Well?’ said I; ‘suppose you were!’

‘ — And beneath him too,’ pursued Uriah, very distinctly, and in a meditative tone of voice, as he continued to scrape his chin.

‘Don’t