...id I, bolting it out with some difficulty.
‘Thank you,’ he returned, with fervour. ‘Thank you, Master
Copperfield! It’s like the blowing of old breezes or the ringing of
old bellses to hear you say Uriah. I beg your pardon. Was I making
any observation?’
‘About Mr. Wickfield,’ I suggested.
‘Oh! Yes, truly,’ said Uriah. ‘Ah! Great imprudence, Master
Copperfield. It’s a topic that I wouldn’t touch upon, to any soul but
you. Even to you I can only touch upon it, and no more. If anyone
else had been in my place during the last few years, by this time he
would have had Mr. Wickfield (oh, what a worthy man he is,
Master Copperfield, too!) under his thumb. Un—der—his thumb,’
said Uriah, very slowly, as he stretched out his cruel-looking hand
above my table, and pressed his own thumb upon it, until it shook,
and shook the room.
If I had been obliged to look at him with him splay foot on Mr.
Wickfield’s head, I think I could scarcely have hated him more.
‘Oh, dear, yes, Master Copperfield,’ he proceeded, in a soft
voice, most remarkably contrasting with the action of his thumb,
which did not diminish its hard pressure in the least degree,
‘there’s no doubt of it. There would have been loss, disgrace, I
don’t know what at all. Mr. Wickfield knows it. I am the umble
instrument of umbly serving him, and he puts me on an eminence
I hardly could have hoped to reach. How thankful should I be!’
With his face turned towards me, as he finished, but without
looking at me, he took his crooked thumb off the spot where he
had planted it, and slowly and thoughtfully scraped his lank jaw
with it, as if he were shaving himself.
I recollect well how indignantly my heart beat, as I saw his
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crafty face, with the appropriately red light of the fire upon it,
preparing for something else.
‘Master Copperfield,’ he began—‘but am I keeping you up?’
‘You are not keeping me up. I generally go to bed late.’
‘Thank you, Master Copperfield! I have risen from my umble
station since first you used to address me, it is true; but I am
umble still. I hope I never shall be otherwise than umble. You will
not think the worse of my umbleness, if I make a little confidence
to you, Master Copperfield? Will you?’
‘Oh no,’ said I, with an effort.
‘Thank you!’ He took out his pocket-handkerchief, and began
wiping the palms of his hands. ‘Miss Agnes, Master Copperfield—’
‘Well, Uriah?’
‘Oh, how pleasant to be called Uriah, spontaneously!’ he cried;
and gave himself a jerk, like a convulsive fish. ‘You thought her
looking very beautiful tonight, Master Copperfield?’
‘I thought her looking as she always does: superior, in all
respects, to everyone around her,’ I returned.
‘Oh, thank you! It’s so true!’ he cried. ‘Oh, thank you very much
for that!’
‘Not at all,’ I said, loftily. ‘There is no reason why you should
thank me.’
‘Why that, Master Copperfield,’ said Uriah, ‘is, in fact, the
confidence that I am going to take the liberty of reposing. Umble
as I am,’ he wiped his hands harder, and looked at them and at the
fire by turns, ’umble as my mother is, and lowly as our poor but
honest roof has ever been, the image of Miss Agnes (I don’t mind
trusting you with my secret, Master Copperfield, for I have always
overflowed towards you since the first moment I had the pleasure
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of beholding you in a pony-shay) has been in my breast for years.
Oh, Master Copperfield, with what a pure affection do I love the
ground my Agnes walks on!’
I believe I had a delirious idea of seizing the red-hot poker out