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our situation, and are certain (as you wouldn’t wish to make
unpleasantness in the family) not to go against me!’
He took the hand which I dared not withhold, and having
given it a damp squeeze, referred to his pale-faced watch.
‘Dear me!’ he said, ‘it’s past one. The moments slip away
so, in the confidence of old times, Master Copperfield, that
it’s almost half past one!’
I answered that I had thought it was later. Not that I had
really thought so, but because my conversational powers
were effectually scattered.
‘Dear me!’ he said, considering. ‘The ouse that I am stop-
ping at - a sort of a private hotel and boarding ouse, Master
Copperfield, near the New River ed - will have gone to bed
these two hours.’
‘I am sorry,’ I returned, ‘that there is only one bed here,
and that I -’
‘Oh, don’t think of mentioning beds, Master Copperfield!’
he rejoined ecstatically, drawing up one leg. ‘But would you
have any objections to my laying down before the fire?’
‘If it comes to that,’ I said, ‘pray take my bed, and I’ll lie
down before the fire.’
His repudiation of this offer was almost shrill enough,
in the excess of its surprise and humility, to have penetrat-
ed to the ears of Mrs. Crupp, then sleeping, I suppose, in
a distant chamber, situated at about the level of low-water
mark, soothed in her slumbers by the ticking of an incor-
rigible clock, to which she always referred me when we had
any little difference on the score of punctuality, and which
was never less than three-quarters of an hour too slow, and

0 David Copperfield