Page 368 - david-copperfield

feel that a parting of that sort was an awkward thing, and
that the nearer it approached, the more awkward it was. Mr.
Jack Maldon tried to be very talkative, but was not at his
ease, and made matters worse. And they were not improved,
as it appeared to me, by the Old Soldier: who continually re-
called passages of Mr. Jack Maldon’s youth.
The Doctor, however, who felt, I am sure, that he was
making everybody happy, was well pleased, and had no
suspicion but that we were all at the utmost height of en-
joyment.
‘Annie, my dear,’ said he, looking at his watch, and fill-
ing his glass, ‘it is past your cousin jack’s time, and we must
not detain him, since time and tide - both concerned in this
case - wait for no man. Mr. Jack Maldon, you have a long
voyage, and a strange country, before you; but many men
have had both, and many men will have both, to the end of
time. The winds you are going to tempt, have wafted thou-
sands upon thousands to fortune, and brought thousands
upon thousands happily back.’
‘It’s an affecting thing,’ said Mrs. Markleham - ‘however
it’s viewed, it’s affecting, to see a fine young man one has
known from an infant, going away to the other end of the
world, leaving all he knows behind, and not knowing what’s
before him. A young man really well deserves constant sup-
port and patronage,’ looking at the Doctor, ‘who makes
such sacrifices.’
‘Time will go fast with you, Mr. Jack Maldon,’ pursued
the Doctor, ‘and fast with all of us. Some of us can hard-
ly expect, perhaps, in the natural course of things, to greet