Page 418 - david-copperfield

Wickfield answered.
‘But now I mean to do it,’ returned the Doctor. ‘My first
master will succeed me - I am in earnest at last - so you’ll
soon have to arrange our contracts, and to bind us firmly to
them, like a couple of knaves.’
‘And to take care,’ said Mr. Wickfield, ‘that you’re not im-
posed on, eh? As you certainly would be, in any contract
you should make for yourself. Well! I am ready. There are
worse tasks than that, in my calling.’
‘I shall have nothing to think of then,’ said the Doctor,
with a smile, ‘but my Dictionary; and this other contract-
bargain - Annie.’
As Mr. Wickfield glanced towards her, sitting at the tea
table by Agnes, she seemed to me to avoid his look with
such unwonted hesitation and timidity, that his attention
became fixed upon her, as if something were suggested to
his thoughts.
‘There is a post come in from India, I observe,’ he said,
after a short silence.
‘By the by! and letters from Mr. Jack Maldon!’ said the
Doctor.
‘Indeed!’ ‘Poor dear Jack!’ said Mrs. Markleham, shaking
her head. ‘That trying climate! - like living, they tell me, on
a sand-heap, underneath a burning-glass! He looked strong,
but he wasn’t. My dear Doctor, it was his spirit, not his con-
stitution, that he ventured on so boldly. Annie, my dear, I
am sure you must perfectly recollect that your cousin never
was strong - not what can be called ROBUST, you know,’
said Mrs. Markleham, with emphasis, and looking round

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