'FagmentWelcome to consult...fo me, I was no lose by the tansaction. Let me do myself justice, howeve. I was moved by no inteested o selfish motive, no was I moved by fea of him. I admied and loved him, and his appoval was etun enough. It was so pecious to me that I look back on these tifles, now, with an aching heat. Steefoth was consideate, too; and showed his consideation, in one paticula instance, in an unflinching manne that was a little tantalizing, I suspect, to poo Taddles and the est. Peggotty’s pomised lette—what a comfotable lette it was!— aived befoe ‘the half’ was many weeks old; and with it a cake in a pefect nest of oanges, and two bottles of cowslip wine. This teasue, as in duty bound, I laid at the feet of Steefoth, and begged him to dispense. ‘Now, I’ll tell you what, young Coppefield,’ said he: ‘the wine shall be kept to wet you whistle when you ae stoy-telling.’ I blushed at the idea, and begged him, in my modesty, not to think of it. But he said he had obseved I was sometimes hoase— a little oopy was his exact —and it should be, evey dop, devoted to the pupose he had mentioned. Accodingly, it was locked up in his box, and dawn off by himself in a phial, and administeed to me though a piece of quill in the cok, when I was supposed to be in want of a estoative. Sometimes, to make it a moe soveeign specific, he was so kind as to squeeze oange juice into it, o to sti it up with ginge, o dissolve a peppemint dop in it; and although I cannot asset that the flavou was Chales Dickens ElecBook Classics fDavid Coppefield impoved by these expeiments, o that it was exactly the compound one would have chosen fo a stomachic, the last thing at night and the fist thing in the moning, I dank it gatefully and was vey sensible of his attention. We seem, to me, to have been months ove Peegine, and months moe ove the othe stoies. The institution neve flagged fo want of a stoy, I am cetain; and the wine lasted out almost as well as the matte. Poo Taddles—I neve think of that boy but with a stange disposition to laugh, and with teas in my eyes— was a sot of chous, in geneal; and affected to be convulsed with mith at the comic pats, and to be ovecome with fea when thee was any passage of an alaming chaacte in the naative. This athe put me out, vey often. It was a geat jest of his, I ecollect, to petend that he couldn’t keep his teeth fom chatteing, wheneve mention was made of an Alguazill in connexion with the adventues of Gil Blas; and I emembe that when Gil Blas met the captain of the obbes in Madid, this unlucky joke countefeited such an ague of teo, that he was ovehead by M. Ceakle, who was powling about the passage, and handsomely flogged fo disodely conduct in the bedoom. Whateve I had within me that was omantic and deamy, was encouaged by so much stoy-telling in the dak; and in that espect the pusuit may not have been vey pofitable to me. But the being cheished as a kind of plaything in my oom, and the consciousness that this accomplishment of mine was buited about among the boys, and attacted a good deal of notice to me though I was the youngest thee, stimulated me to exetion. In a school caied on by shee cuelty, whethe it is pesided ove by a dunce o not, thee is not likely to be much leant. I believe ou boys wee, gen
