Page 857 - david-copperfield

presence furnished to its exhibition.
I had observed yesterday, that he tried to entice Mr.
Wickfield to drink; and, interpreting the look which Agnes
had given me as she went out, had limited myself to one
glass, and then proposed that we should follow her. I would
have done so again today; but Uriah was too quick for me.
‘We seldom see our present visitor, sir,’ he said, address-
ing Mr. Wickfield, sitting, such a contrast to him, at the end
of the table, ‘and I should propose to give him welcome in
another glass or two of wine, if you have no objections. Mr.
Copperfield, your elth and appiness!’
I was obliged to make a show of taking the hand he
stretched across to me; and then, with very different emo-
tions, I took the hand of the broken gentleman, his partner.
‘Come, fellow-partner,’ said Uriah, ‘if I may take the
liberty, - now, suppose you give us something or another
appropriate to Copperfield!’
I pass over Mr. Wickfield’s proposing my aunt, his pro-
posing Mr. Dick, his proposing Doctors’ Commons, his
proposing Uriah, his drinking everything twice; his con-
sciousness of his own weakness, the ineffectual effort that
he made against it; the struggle between his shame in
Uriah’s deportment, and his desire to conciliate him; the
manifest exultation with which Uriah twisted and turned,
and held him up before me. It made me sick at heart to see,
and my hand recoils from writing it.
‘Come, fellow-partner!’ said Uriah, at last, ‘I’ll give you
another one, and I umbly ask for bumpers, seeing I intend
to make it the divinest of her sex.’

David Copperfield