Page 1131 - david-copperfield

‘Stop!’ he growled to me; and wiped his hot face with
his hand. ‘Mother, hold your noise. Well! Let ‘em have that
deed. Go and fetch it!’
‘Do you help her, Mr. Dick,’ said Traddles, ‘if you please.’
Proud of his commission, and understanding it, Mr.
Dick accompanied her as a shepherd’s dog might accom-
pany a sheep. But, Mrs. Heep gave him little trouble; for she
not only returned with the deed, but with the box in which
it was, where we found a banker’s book and some other pa-
pers that were afterwards serviceable.
‘Good!’ said Traddles, when this was brought. ‘Now, Mr.
Heep, you can retire to think: particularly observing, if you
please, that I declare to you, on the part of all present, that
there is only one thing to be done; that it is what I have ex-
plained; and that it must be done without delay.’
Uriah, without lifting his eyes from the ground, shuffled
across the room with his hand to his chin, and pausing at
the door, said:
‘Copperfield, I have always hated you. You’ve always been
an upstart, and you’ve always been against me.’
‘As I think I told you once before,’ said I, ‘it is you who
have been, in your greed and cunning, against all the world.
It may be profitable to you to reflect, in future, that there
never were greed and cunning in the world yet, that did not
do too much, and overreach themselves. It is as certain as
death.’
‘Or as certain as they used to teach at school (the same
school where I picked up so much umbleness), from nine
o’clock to eleven, that labour was a curse; and from elev-

11 0 David Copperfield