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Hello and welcome to Storytime for Grown Ups. I'm Faith Moore and this season we're reading David Copperfield by Charles Dickens. Each episode I'll read a few chapters from the book, pausing from time to time to give brief explanations so it's easier to follow along. It's like an audiobook with built in notes. So brew a pot of tea, find a cozy chair and settle in. It's story time. Hello. Welcome back. I'm so happy you're here. I know I always say that, but it really is true. I love doing this. I love being here with you. I mean, what an amazing thing to get to read books aloud to people and have them listen and write in to me. And I get to talk to you all and correspond with you via email and I get to hear your amazing thoughts and reactions. What a gift. Thank you. Thank you so much for being here. It's amazing. So today I have kind of a lot to talk about in the intro. It's going to be a bit of a long intro after your comments because you have such great questions and comments. And also there's a lot of sort of historical context and some other content of information that I feel like I need to share with you today. And that's always fun. So I'm gonna do it. Luckily, the chapter itself is actually a short one, so it's a shorter chapter but a longer intro and hopefully that'll all add up to basically the same amount of time for the episode as usual. So we're going to do that. I'm not going to spend too much time here talking at the beginning because I am going to spend a little bit of time chatting with you about a few things before we get into the chapter. So please just make sure you're subscribed. Please tap the five stars. Please, please leave a positive review. Tell a friend, tell a co worker, tell a family member, tell anyone. Send links to people at, you know, random numbers or something just in case, I don't know. Tell, tell the world. Because the more of us reading these wonderful books together, the better the world is going to be. I really, truly believe that we can change the world by reading these books and talking about them. So let's just do that. Why wait? Let's get into this episode right now. So last time we read chapter 11, today we're going to be reading chapter 12, which I say again is a sor of shorter chapter. But let's start by just reminding ourselves what happened in chapter 11. And then we'll have this chat with all this information that I have now built up so much and hopefully we will all enjoy. So here is the recap. All right, so where we left off. Davey starts his job in the warehouse of Murdstone and Grinby. He works with a few other boys, cleaning and filling bottles of wine and spirits, they that will then be packed on two ships. He is absolutely miserable and devastated that he's now reduced to the life of a laborer rather than a gentleman. On his first day, he's introduced to a man named Mr. Macabre who has a room to let that Mr. Murdstone has arranged for Davey to take. Mr. Macabre is very poor, but he carries himself with the air of a gentleman. And we quickly learn that he is terribly in debt, but not really doing much to try to pay back his debts or earn more money. But he and his wife are very kind and Davey sort of latches on to them as his only acquaintance acquaintances. Mrs. Macawer starts confiding in Davey and she tells him about their financial troubles and eventually she asks Davey to help her to sell or pawn some of their things for money. Davey spends his days working and going to various shops to buy himself food from the wages that he gets. He spends the rest of his time with the Macabre and he becomes very fond of them and they become very fond of him. But one day Mr. Macabre is arrested and sent to Dedor's prison. Davey visits him there and eventually Mrs. Macabre and their children all go to live with him there as well. So Davey gets a small room in a house nearby and he visits with them whenever he can. Eventually, it looks like Mr. Macawer will be released soon, but while he's still in prison, he gets all the debtors to sign a petition having something to do with debtors rights. Davey is totally miserable in his job, but he doesn't tell anyone, not even Peggy. And he feels that there is really no escape and that he'll be a laborer forever. Okay, I'm going to read 3 comments today. The first one comes from Rachel Clevenger. Rachel says, I. I love how tender hearted Davey is. Even with all that there is stacked against him, he hasn't lost heart. And honestly, though the circumstances are awful, he must be learning a great deal about the value of money. I could easily see him becoming a fine accountant one day. The next one comes from Lydia Osborne. She says, how on earth was debtors prison supposed to work? And exactly how, by what means, in what way did it actually work? I've seen examples of it in literature such as this and heard a great deal in my readings of history. But it seems the dumbest plan for the recompense of monies ever invented. I can't imagine what the original idea was and who could have thought it worth implementing, but it seems to have been in use for many, many decades, if not a century or two at least. And the last one comes from Pam Shroud. Pam says it is amazing what a grown up life that David lived at 10 years old. Of course we know that he is telling his story after having grown up, but the things he did in this chapter don't sound like the 10 year olds that I know. What a different world. Okay, so I think this intro is going to be one of those ones where I give you a fair amount of historical information because as Lydia points out, we get this sequence involving debtors prison, which I don't know about you, but it doesn't sound like any sort of prison that I've ever heard of. So we should talk about that. Additionally to Pam's point, we should talk about what's actually happening to Davey now and whether or not that was normal for a boy his age and what it all means for him that he's now a warehouse worker. And. And the moment has also come to discuss something I've been promising to discuss for a while now, which is which elements of Dickens's own life is he using to inform this book? Because we have now gotten to a very important one of those, which I think it's worth mentioning. And finally we should just touch on these new characters that we're meeting, most notably the Macabre. And also on what Rachel is talking about, about the way in which Davey is handling all of this. So like I said, we have a lot to talk about. But that's okay. The chapter's short, we're going to get through it, so let's dive in. I'm going to answer Lydia's question first about debtors prison. Now I'm not going to do a whole historical examination on debtors prison. It's not like integral to the plot or anything that you understand the intricacies of this particular system of incarceration. But it is something that you will encounter from time to time in Victorian literature and certainly in other books by Dickens. And I'll explain why that might be in a moment. But that means that it is worth having a kind of basic understanding of what it is. And it can be interesting just from a historical perspective. So I'm going to Give you a brief overview. So the reason that we're even talking about debtors prison is because Mr. Macabre, who we met last time, ends up in one. Right, and I'll talk more about the Macabre in just a minute. But essentially, a debtor's prison is a prison for people who weren't able to pay their debts. This concept of locking people up who were in debt, it dates back to medieval times. So it's been around for a long, long time. But in the 18th and 19th centuries, there were so many people in prison for debt that prisons specifically for debtors were established. The two most famous ones in London were called the Fleet and the Marshalsea. Now, pretty much everyone locked up for debt was male because the men were in charge of the finances for each family. But if the wives and children of the debtor weren't able to survive on their own without the breadwinner, they could join the man in prison, too. And that's what ultimately happens with the macabre. Right, I'm going to read you a quote. This is from the History Extra magazine, which is a great magazine, by the way, if you're interested in history. And there's a podcast too, which is also really good. But this is from an article called your guide to debtors prison, and this is what it says. In general, debtors were treated differently from regular prisoners being allowed special privileges such as visiting rights. But conditions varied enormously, depending largely on each debtor's financial situation. The prisons were privately run institutions that charged their residents for board and lodgings. Those who had managed to prevent their creditors from taking all of their money or who had wealthy friends who could support them, might live in reasonable comfort, taking advantage of bars, restaurants and cafes on site. Okay, so this is important because you might have been listening to the description of Mr. Macabre in debtors prison and thinking that this really doesn't sound very much like prison. They're like, ordering food. There's a club that Mr. Macabre goes to. Davey can visit seemingly whenever he wants and stays for dinner. The family can move in if they want. That doesn't really sound like jail. Right? But Mr. Macawer, because he's a gentleman, and again, I'll talk more about that in a moment. But because he's a gentleman, and presumably not all his money is gone, he gets to treat the debtors prison as a kind of like, hostel that you're not allowed to leave or something. But, and I'm going to quote from that same article again, poorer people had a much different experience. So here is that quote. However, for those who were genuinely destitute, conditions could be intolerable. Inmates would resort to begging for coins from passersby and some starve to death. A parliamentary inquiry into prison conditions in 1729-30 found such appalling treatment of poor debtors that it resulted in the prosecution of a number of prison keepers for murder. So that's awful. But Even though for Mr. Macawer, the whole thing is sort of unsavory, and the guy upstairs with the dirty woman that's not his wife and the two dirty girls or whatever, he seems kind of sketchy in all of this. So even though it's not like, wonderful, the version of debt debtors prison that we're getting here in the book is clearly the first one that I described from the article rather than the second one. The only way to get out of debtors prison was to pay off your debts. So it wasn't like you were sentenced for a period of time and then you could get out. You had to stay there until you could pay your way out or until you could reach some kind of agreement with your creditors such that they would waive the debt or allow you to pay later or something like that. But since they actually had to pay pay to be housed there, their debts could increase while they were in prison. So people could end up spending decades in debtors prison because the only way to get out was to find someone willing to help you pay your debts or make some kind of deal with the people you owed money to. You could work and try to earn money while in prison, but the money you made rarely made up for what you owed. So it was a pretty awful situation to be in. Which leads me to the next thing I want to talk about today, which is the connections between what Davey is going through now in the story and what happened to Charles Dickens as a boy. Now, I don't think that you actually need to know any of what I'm about to tell you in order to enjoy this book. The story speaks for itself, but I think it's kind of interesting. And I know many of you were wondering which parts of the story were autobiographical, and this is a pretty big one, so I thought I would share it. This seems like the right time to share this. So, just like Davey, Dickens had a pretty idyllic early life. His father wasn't dead and he lived with both parents and his seven siblings. He was the second oldest, so that's different than Davy baby's life. But he had what he felt was a very nice childhood, playing outdoors, reading a lot, going to school and generally having a good time. But when he was 12 years old, his father was taken to debtors prison, essentially because he'd been living outside his means, spending more than he had and racking up debts and things. And so they took the father to Marshalsea Prison, which is one of those two famous debtors prisons in London that I was talking about a moment ago. Dickens's mother and his younger siblings went with the father into the prison, just like Mrs. Macawer and the Macawer children went into the prison in the story. But Dickens, who, as I say, was 12 at the time, he was sent to work in a factory. He boarded first with an impoverished family friend and then with an old gentleman with a room for rent. And he worked 10 hours a day at Warren's Blacking Warehouse, which was a place where they made boot blacking, which means the place, the polish that you put on boots to make them black and shiny. Dickens absolutely hated this. He didn't feel cut out for it. It wasn't the life he wanted for himself. He was intensely miserable. I'm going to read you a description of this that Dickens wrote to John Forster, who ended up writing a biography of Dickens. But this is Dickens's description of the factory that he worked at when he was 12 years old. Here's what it says. The Blacking Warehouse was the last house on the left hand side of the way at Old Hungerford Staircase. It was a crazy tumbledown old house, abutting, of course, on the river and literally overrun with rats. Its wainscotted rooms and its rotten floors and staircase and the old gray rats swarming down in the cellars and the sound of their squeaking and scuffling coming up the stairs at all times and the dirt and decay of the place rise up visibly before me as if I were there again. The counting house was on the first floor, looking over the coal barges and the river. There was a recess in it in which I was to sit and work. My work was to cover the pots of paste blacking first with a piece of oil paper and then with a piece of blue paper to tie them round with a string and then to clip the paper close and neat all round until it looked as smart as a pot of ointment from an apothecary's shop. When a certain number of grosses of pots had attained this pitch of perfection, I was to paste on each a printed label and then go on again with more Pots. Two or three other boys were kept at similar duty downstairs on similar wages. One of them came up in a ragged apron and a paper cap on the first Monday morning to show me the trick of using the string and tying the knot. His name was Bob Fagan, and I took the liberty of using his name long afterwards in Oliver Twist. Okay, now I'm going to read you the description of Murdstone and Grinby's warehouse from chapter 11 of David Copperfield. I'm going to skip around a little, but this is all from the book. Here's what it Murdstone and Grinby's warehouse was at the waterside. It was down in Blackfriars. Modern improvements have altered the place, but it was the last house at the bottom of a narrow street curving downhill to the river with some stairs at the end where people took boat. It was a crazy old house with a wharf of its own abutting on the water when the tide was in and on the mud when the tide was out and literally overrun with rats. Rats. Its panelled rooms discolored with the dirt and smoke of a hundred years, I dare say its decaying floors and staircase, the squeaking and scuffling of the old grey rats down in the cellars, and the dirt and rottenness of the place are things not of many years ago in my mind, but of the present instant. They are all before me just as they were in the evil hour when I went among them for the first time with my trembling hand in Mr. Quinion's. There were labels to be pasted on full ones, or corks to be fitted to them, or seals to be put on the corks, or finished bottles to be packed in casks. All this work was my work, and of the boys employed upon it, I was one. There were three or four of us counting me. My working place was established in a corner of the warehouse where Mr. Quinion could see me when he chose to stand up on the bottom rail of his stool in the counting house and look at me through a window above the desk. Hither. On the first morning of my so auspiciously beginning life on my own account, the oldest of the regular boys was summoned to show me my business. His name was Mick Walker, and he wore a ragged apron and a paper cap. Okay, so you can see just how closely he is modeling Murdstone and Grinby's on the boot blacking factory that he himself was sent to work in. And while Mr. Micawber is not necessarily modeled after Dickens own father in terms of personality. The situation of him ending up in debtors prison with his wife and children due to living outside of his means is certainly an equivalent situation to what happened to Dickens's family. And I think it's interesting that Mr. And Mrs. Micawber before they go into the prison become like a sort of surrogate family for Davy. Not necessarily because they are such great parental figures but because they are parental figures and Davey has no one at all to take care of him. And the Macawers are, if not responsible, at least kind. So let's end by taking a quick look at the Macawers and Davey's life now and what it might all mean for him going forward. So to answer Pam's question, this was not at all normal for a 9 or 10 year old middle class boy. Lower class boys, boys who weren't going to receive an education would certainly be sent out to work. And we encounter boys like that at the factory, right? Mick Walker and mealy potatoes and everyone but a middle class boy of 9 or 10 is supposed to be at school. He's not supposed to need to get a job until he's like 17 or 18 or so. So Davey has now fallen down the social ladder essentially and he's being forced into the life of a lower class boy even though he's really a middle class boy just like Charles Dickens was as well. And Dickens clearly still feels the sting of this because he has adult David. Say here's a quote. A child of excellent abilities and with strong powers of observation, quick and eager, delicate and soon hurt bodily or mentally. It seems wonderful to me that nobody should have made any sign in my behalf. So he's talking about Davey but he's talking about himself too I think. And Davie also feels the sting of it even in the moment. Here's what he says. He says no words can express the secret agony of my soul as I sunk into this companionship. Compared these henceforth everyday associates with those of my happier childhood, not to say with Steerforth, Traddles and the rest of those boys and felt my hopes of growing up to be a learned and distinguished man crushed in my bosom. Okay? And then later he says here's another quote. The misery it was to my young heart to believe that day by day what I had learned and thought and delighted in and raised my fancy and my emulation up by would pass away from me little by little never to be brought back any more. Okay, so he's afraid that by living this lower class life he's going to turn Into a lower class sort of person. Someone who's uneducated, unintellectual, with no prospects. And he's afraid he won't even remember how to be a middle class person or how to care about the things that he used to aspire to. And that's a real blow to him. He has dreams of being a distinguished gentleman, but he can't do that when he's pasting labels onto bottles all day instead of learning things. Things. But like I was saying before, I think last time, all of the actually lower class people, the boys and other workers at the warehouse and everyone, they can tell that Davey is middle class because of the way he speaks and the things he knows and how he carries himself and everything they can tell and that sets him apart from everyone so that he can't even really fit in with these boys his own age. And he's completely and utterly alone. And everything that he's doing, like buying his own food at various shops and budgeting his money and going to a bar and ordering a beer, everything he's doing is not at all the sort of thing that a little middle class boy would have done. He's been thrust out into the world completely unprepared and he's supposed to take care of himself and fend for himself before he's ready. Basically. It's kind of like asking a 9 year old kid today to do this. It's like taking a middle class 9 year old boy today who's been going to his local public school and living at home with his mom and dad and hanging out at the park on weekends or whatever. It's like asking that kid to suddenly live an adult life without any adult supervision. Rent an apartment, get a job, buy his own food, everything. It's insane. So nothing about what is happening to Davey would have been normal for a boy of his social class at the time. But like Rachel says, Davey is still very much Davey. He's still, still the innocent, kind hearted, loving boy that he's always been. And he's got integrity too. He doesn't hold himself above the other boys just because he comes from a middle class home. He says, here's another quote. I knew from the first that if I could not do my work as well as any of the rest, I could not hold myself above slight and contempt. Meaning if he can't work just as hard and just as well as the other boys, then he's not any better than them. So he's going to work hard and do what he's supposed to do, which shows real grit, I think, even though he's still the sort of dreamy little kid that he's always been. And I think it's because he's so loving and so hurting for people to love and to be loved by. I think it's because of this that he latches onto the Macabre. Now, the Macabre are interesting because they are not bad people. And I think the most telling detail about them for me is when Mrs. Macawer starts telling Davey about all of their debts and Davey offers to lend them some money and Mrs. Macawer says no, she would never take his money. Here is that quote. I had two or three shillings of my week's money in my pocket, from which I presume that it must have been on a Wednesday night when we held this conversation and I hastily produced them and with heartfelt emotion begged Mrs. Micawber to accept them as a loan. But the lady kissing me and making me put them back in my pocket replied that she couldn't think of it. I mean, think about the waiter who tricked Davey out of all his money, right? I mean, even Steerforth at school took Davies money, although he used it to a good end, so it's not as bad. But the Macabre's are so in debt that they end up in prison, but they won't take Davey's money. And I think that tells us that they are good people. But they are also, and Mr. Macawber in particular, they're also people who are completely sort of delusional about their situation in life. We are told that Mr. Macawer has an air of gentility and he dresses like a gentleman and he speaks with this kind of elaborate formality, but he's always in debt, he's always spending more than he has. He's always assuming that something is going to turn up to help him pay off his debts, even though there's really no reason to think that he's always becoming incredibly upset when his debts come due and then getting over it again super quickly, even though he still doesn't have any money. He's sort of out of touch with the world. So he's living as if he's middle class, but he actually doesn't have any money to back that up. And Mrs. Macawer, who we learn comes from a wealthy family, but she's married Mr. Macawer, and therefore she has to live like him, she's pawning all their stuff in secret because she knows they need money, but she also doesn't really seem to have any sense of what they can actually do to get it. Here's a quote that I think sums up Mr. McCover perfectly. It says, and then said Mr. Micawber, who was present, I have no doubt I shall please heaven begin to be beforehand with the world and to live in a perfectly new manner. If, in short, if anything turns up like how will he live in a new manner, what is going to turn up? He has no idea, we have no idea. And on he goes, TRA la, TRA la or whatever. So on the one hand these are not the best parental figures for Davy, but on the other hand they are a married couple. They have a sense of integrity, they have children. So under the circumstances, they're not the worst parental figures he could have found in this situation. And they seem to actually care about Davy even though they see him more as an adult sort of person than as a child that they could care for and love. So I'm going to stop there. I've been talking for a long time, but as I say, the chapter's short, so I think it made sense to go over all of that historical stuff. And I did want to touch on the Micawbers and Davy as well. So there we are. Davey is trapped in this situation. The macawvers are in jail. There's nothing really on the horizon implying that anything is going to change. So what is going to happen? Well, let's keep reading and find out. And of course, as always, don't forget to write to me. It's faith k.moore.com Click on Contact. Send me all of your questions and thoughts. I love to hear from you. I really would love to hear what you think of this chapter and all of your reactions to the book. All right, let's get started with chapter 12 of David Copperfield by Charles Dickens. It's story time. Chapter 12. Liking life on my own account, no better. I form a great resolution in due time. Mr. Micawber's petition was ripe for hearing and that gentleman was ordered to be discharged under the Act. To my great joy, the act they're referring to here is the Insolvent Debtors act, which is essentially like declaring bankruptcy. So he goes to court and the verdict is that he is allowed to come out of jail and basically start afresh. His creditors were not implacable, meaning it was possible to work something out with his creditors. And Mrs. Micawber informed me that even the revengeful bootmaker had declared in open court that he bore him no malice, but that when money was owing to Him? He liked to be paid. He said he thought it was human nature. Mr. Macawer returned to the King's bench when his case was over, as some fees were to be settled and some formalities observed before he could be actually released. The club received him with transport and held an harmonic meeting that evening in his honor, while Mrs. Micawber and I had a lamb fry in private, surrounded by the sleeping family. On such an occasion I will give you Master Copperfield, said Mrs. Micawber in a little more flip, meaning a little more alcohol, for we had been having some already. The memory of my papa and mamma. Are they dead, ma'? Am? I inquired after drinking the toast in a wine glass. My mamma departed this life, said Mrs. Micawber, before Mr. Micawber's difficulties commenced, or at least before they became pressing. My papa lived to bail Mr. Micawber several times and then expired, regretted by a numerous circle. Mrs. Micawber shook her head and dropped a pious tear upon the twin who happened to be in hand. As I could hardly hope for a more favourable opportunity of putting a question in which I had a near interest, I said to Mrs. Micawber, May I ask, ma', am, what you and Mr. Micawber intend to do now that Mr. Micawber is out of his difficulties and at liberty? Have you settled yet? My family, said Mrs. Micawber, who always said those two words with an air, though I never could discover who came under the denomination. My family are of opinion that Mr. Micawber should quit London and exert his talents in the country. Mr. Micawber is a man of great talent, Master Copperfield, I said I was sure of that. Of great talent, repeated Mrs. Micawber. My family are of opinion that with a little interest something might be done for a man of his ability in the Custom House. The influence of my family being local, it is their wish that Mr. Micawber should go down to Plymouth. They think it indispensable that he should be upon the spot. That he may be ready, I suggested. Exactly, returned Mrs. Micawber, that he may be ready in case of anything turning up. And do you go too, ma'? Am? The events of the day, in combination with the twins, if not with the flip, had made Mrs. Micawber hysterical, and she shed tears as she replied, I Never will desert Mr. Micawber. Mr. Micawber may have concealed his difficulties for me in the first instance, but his sanguine temper may have led him to expect that he would overcome them. The pearl necklace and bracelets which I inherited from mamma have been disposed of for less than half their value, and the set of coral, which was the wedding gift of my papa, has been actually thrown away for nothing. But I never will desert Mr. Micawber. No. Cried Mrs. Micawber, more affected than before. I never will do it. It's of no use asking me. I felt quite uncomfortable, as if Mrs. Micawber supposed I had asked her to do anything of the sort, and sat looking at her in alarm. Mr. Micawber has his faults. I do not deny that he is improvident. I do not deny that he has kept me in the dark as to his resources and his liabilities both. She went on, looking at the wall. But I Never will desert Mr. Micawber. Mrs. Micawber, having now raised her voice into a perfect scream, I was so frightened that I ran off to the club room and disturbed Mr. Micawber in the act of presiding at a long table and leading the chorus of Gee up, Dobbin, Gee O Dobbin, Gee up, Dobbin, Gee up and Gee O O, O With the tidings that Mrs. Micawber was in an alarming state, upon which he immediately burst into tears and came away with me with his waistcoat full of the heads and tails of shrimp of which he had been partaking. Emma, my angel. Cried Mr. Micawber, running into the room. What is the matter? I will never desert you, Micawber. She exclaimed. My life. Said Mr. Micawber, taking her in his arms. I am perfectly aware of it. He is the parent of my children, he is the father of my twins, he is the husband of my affections, cried Mrs. Micawber, struggling. And I never will desert Mr. Micawber. Mr. Micawber was so deeply affected by this proof of her devotion, as to me I was dissolved in tears that he hung over her in a passionate manner, imploring her to look up and to be calm. But the more he asked Mrs. Micawber to look up, the more she fixed her eyes on nothing, and the more he asked her to compose herself, the more she wouldn't. Consequently, Mr. Micawber was soon so overcome that he mingled his tears with hers and mine, until he begged me to do him the favour of taking a chair on the staircase while he got her into bed. I would have taken my leave for the night, but he would not hear of my doing that until the stranger's bell should ring. So I sat at the staircase window until he came out with another chair and joined me. How is Mrs. Micawber? Now, sir, I said. Very low, said Mr. Micawber, shaking his head. Reaction. Ah, this has been a dreadful day. We stand alone now. Everything is gone from us. Mr. Micawber pressed my hand and groaned and afterwards shed tears. I was greatly touched and disappointed too, for I had expected that we should be quite gay on this happy and long looked for occasion. But Mr. And Mrs. Micawber were so used to their old difficulties, I think, that they felt quite shipwrecked when they came to consider that they were released from them. All their elasticity was departed, and I never saw them half so wretched as on this night. Insomuch that when the bell rang and Mr. Micawber walked with me to the lodge and parted from me there with a blessing, I felt quite afraid to leave him by himself, he was so profoundly miserable. But through all the confusion and lowness of spirits in which we had been so unexpectedly to me involved, I plainly discerned that Mr. And Mrs. Micawber and their family were going away from London, and that a parting between us was near at hand. It was in my walk home that night, and in the sleepless hours which followed when I lay in bed, that the thought first occurred to me, though I don't know how it came into my head, which afterward shaped itself into a settled resolution. I had grown to be so accustomed to the Micawbers, and had been so intimate with them in their distresses and was so utterly friendless without them, that the prospect of being thrown upon some new shift for a lodging and going once more among unknown people was like being that moment turned adrift into my present life with such a knowledge of it ready made as experience had given me, all the sensitive feelings it wounded so cruelly, all the shame and misery it kept alive within my breast became more poignant as I thought of this. And I determined that the life was unendurable, that there was no hope of escape from it, unless the escape was my own act. I knew quite well. I rarely heard from Miss Murdstone and never from Mr. Murdstone. But two or three parcels of made or mended clothes had come up for me, consigned to Mr. Quinion, and in each there was a scrap of paper to the effect that JM Trusted D. C. Was applying himself to business and devoting himself wholly to his duties. Not the least hint of my ever being anything else than the common drudge into which I was fast settling down the very next day showed me, while my mind was in the first agitation of what it had conceived that Mrs. Micawber had not spoken of their going away without warrant. They took a lodging in the house where I lived for a week at the expiration of which time they were to start for Plymouth. Mr. Micawber himself came down to the counting house in the afternoon to tell Mr. Quinion that he must relinquish me on the day of his departure and to give me a high character which I am sure I deserved. And Mr. Quinion, calling in Tip the carman, who was a married man and had a room to let, courted me prospectively on him by our mutual consent, as he had every reason to think, for I said nothing, though my resolution was now taken. I passed my evenings with Mr. And Mrs. Micawber during the remaining term of our residence under the same roof and I think we became fonder of one another as the time went on. On the last Sunday they invited me to dinner and we had a loin of pork and apple sauce and a pudding. I had bought a spotted wooden horse overnight as a parting gift to little Wilkins Micawber, that was the boy. And a doll for little Emma. I had also bestowed a shilling on the orphling who was about to be disbanded. We had a very pleasant day, though we were all in a tender state about our approaching separation. I never shall, Master Copperfield, said Mrs. Micawber, revert to the period when Mr. Micawber was in difficulties without thinking of you. Your conduct has always been of the most delicate and obliging description. You have never been a lodger, you have been a friend. My dear, said Mr. Micawber Copperfield, for so he had been accustomed to call me of late, has a heart to feel for the distresses of his fellow creatures when they are behind a cloud and head to plan and hand to, in short, a general ability to dispose of such available property as could be made away with. I expressed my sense of this commendation and said I was very sorry we were going to lose one another. My dear young friend, said Mr. Micawber, I am older than you, a man of some experience in life and and of some experience, in short, in difficulties, generally speaking, at present, and until something turns up, which I am, I may say, hourly expecting, I have nothing to bestow but advice. Still, my advice is so far worth taking, that, in short, that I have never taken it myself and am the here. Mr. Micawber, who had been beaming and smiling all over his head and face up to the present moment, checked himself and frowned. The miserable wretch. You behold, my dear Micawber, urged his wife. I say, returned Mr. Micawber, quite forgetting himself and smiling again, the miserable wretch. You behold, my advice is, never do tomorrow what you can do today. Procrastination is the thief of time. Collar him. My Poor Papa's maxim, Mrs. Micawber observed. My dear, said Mr. Micawber, your Papa was very well in his way, and heaven forbid that I should disparage him, take him, for all in all, we ne' er shall, in short, make the acquaintance probably of anybody else, possessing at his time of life the same legs for gaiters, and able to read the same description of print without spectacles. But he applied that maxim to our marriage, my dear, and that was so far prematurely entered into in consequence that I never recovered the expense. Mr. Macawer looked aside at Mrs. Micawber and added, not that I am sorry for it, quite the contrary, my love. After which he was grave for a minute or so. My other piece of Advice, Copperfield, said Mr. McCover, you know, annual income £20 annual expenditure, 19, 19 and 6 result happiness. Annual income £20 annual expenditure £20 ought and 6 result misery. Meaning if you spend less than you make, you'll be happy but if you spend more than you make, you'll be miserable. The blossom is blighted, the leaf is withered, the God of day goes down upon the dreary scene and and in short, you are forever floored as I am. To make his example the more impressive, Mr. Micawber drank a glass of punch with an air of great enjoyment and satisfaction, and whistled the college hornpipe. I did not fail to assure him that I would store these precepts in my mind, though indeed I had no need to do so, for at the time they affected me visibly. Next morning I met the whole family at the coach office and saw them with a desolate heart take their places outside at the back. Master Copperfield, said Mrs. Micawber, God bless you. I never can forget all that, you know, and I never would if I could. Micoperfield, said Mr. Micawber, farewell every happiness and prosperity. If in the progress of revolving years I could persuade myself that my blighted destiny had been a warning to you, I should feel that I had not occupied another man's mind place in existence altogether in vain. In case of anything turning up, of which I am rather confident, I shall be extremely happy if it should be in my power to improve your prospects, I think as Mrs. Micawber sat at the back of the coach with the children and I stood in the road Looking wistfully at them. A mist cleared from her eyes. And she saw what a little creature I really was. I think so, because she beckoned to me to climb up with quite a new and motherly expression on her face. And put her arm round my neck and gave me just such a kiss as she might have given to her own boy. I had barely time to get down again before the coach started. And I could hardly see the family for the handkerchiefs they waved. It was gone in a minute. The orphling and I stood looking vacantly at each other in the middle of the road. And then shook hands and said good bye. She going back, I supposed, to St. Luke's workhouse. As I went to begin my weary day at Murdstone and Grinby's. But with no intention of passing many more weary days there. No, I had resolved to run away. To go by some means or other down into the country to the only relation I had in the world. And tell my story to my aunt, Miss Betsy. Okay, so that's Betsy Trotwood. The one who came on the day he was born and left because he wasn't a girl. I have already observed that I don't know how this desperate idea came into my brain. But once there, it remained there and hardened into a purpose Than which I have never entertained. A more determined purpose in my life. I am far from sure that I believed there was anything hopeful in it. But my mind was thoroughly made up that it must be carried into execution. Again and again and a hundred times again. Since the night when the thought had first occurred to me and banished sleep. I had gone over that old story of my poor mothers about my birth. Which it had been one of my great delights in the old time to hear her tell. And which I knew by heart. My aunt walked into that story and walked out of it. A dread and awful personage. But there was one little trait in her behavior which I liked to dwell on. And which gave me some faint shadow of encouragement. I could not forget how my mother had thought that she felt her touch her pretty hair with no ungentle hand. And though it might have been altogether my mother's fancy. And might have had no foundation whatever. In fact, I made a little picture out of it of my terrible aunt Relenting towards the girlish beauty. That I recollected so well and loved so much, which softened the whole narrative. It is very possible that it had been in my mind a long time. And had gradually engendered my determination. As I did not even know where Ms. Betsey lived. I wrote a long letter to Peggotty and asked her, incidentally, if she remembered, pretending that I had heard of such a lady living at a certain place I named at random and had a curiosity to know if it were the same. In the course of that letter I told Peggotty that I had a particular occasion for half a guinea and that if she could lend me that sum until I could repay it, I should be very much obliged to her and would tell her afterwards what I had wanted it for. Peggotty's answer soon arrived and was, as usual, full of affectionate devotion. She enclosed the half guinea. I was afraid she must have had a world of trouble to get it out of Mr. Barkis's box and told me that Miss Betsy lived near Dover. But whether at Dover itself, at Hythe, Sandgate or Folkestone, she could not say. One of our men, however, informing me on my asking him about these places that they were all close together. I deemed this enough for my object and resolved to set out at the end of that week. Being a very honest little creature and unwilling to disgrace the memory I was going to leave behind me at Murdstone and Grinby's, I considered myself bound to remain until Saturday night. And as I had been paid a week's wages in advance when I first came there, not to present myself in the counting house at the usual hour to receive my stipend, for this express reason I had borrowed the half guinea that I might not be without a fund for my traveling expenses. Accordingly, when the Saturday night came and we were all waiting in the warehouse to be paid, and Tip, the carman, who always took precedence, went in first to draw his money. I shook Mick Walker by the hand, asked him when it came to his turn to be paid, to say to Mr. Quinion that I had gone to move my box to Tip's and bidding a last good night to mealy potatoes, ran away. My box was at my old lodging over the water and I had written a direction for it on the back of one of our address cards that we nailed on the casks. Master David to be left till called for at the coach office, Dover. This I had in my pocket ready to put on the box after I should have got it out of the house. And as I went towards my lodging, I looked about me for someone who would help me to carry it to the booking office. There was a long legged young man with a very little empty donkey cart standing near the obelisk in the Blackfriars road whose eye I caught as I was going by, and who, addressing me as sixpennorf of bad apence, hoped I should know him again to swear to. So he's challenging him, right, saying basically, what are you staring at? In allusion, I have no doubt to my staring at him. I stopped to assure him that I had not done so in bad manners, but uncertain whether he might or might not like a job. What job? Said the long legged young man. To move a box, I answered. What box? Said the long legged young man. I told him mine, which was down that street there and which I wanted him to take to the Dover coach office for sixpence. Done with you for a tanner, said the long legged young man, and directly got upon his cart, which was nothing but a large wooden tray on wheels, and rattled away at such a rate that it was as much as I could do to keep pace with the donkey. There was a defiant manner about this young man, and particularly about the way in which he chewed straw as he spoke to me that I did not much like. As the bargain was made, however, I took him upstairs to the room I was leaving and we brought the box down and put it on his cart. Now I was unwilling to put the direction card on there, lest any of my landlord's family should fathom what I was doing and detain me. So I said to the young man that I would be glad if he would stop a minute when he came to the dead wall of the King's Bench Prison. The words were no sooner out of my mouth than he rattled away as if he, my box, the cart and the donkey were all equally mad and I was quite out of breath with running and calling after him when I caught him at the place appointed. Being much flushed and excited, I tumbled my half guinea out of my pocket. In pulling the card out I put it in my mouth for safety, and though my hands trembled a good deal, had just tied the card on very much to my satisfaction, satisfaction, when I felt myself violently chucked under the chin by the long legged young man and saw my half guinea fly out of my mouth into his hand. What? Said the young man, seizing me by my jacket collar with a frightful grin. This is a police case, is it? You're a going to bolt, are you? Come to the police, you young woman. Come to the police, he's saying. Come with him to the police. You give me my money back if you please, said I, very much frightened. And leave me alone. Come to the police, said the young man. You shall prove it yourn to the police. Okay, so this guy has taken Davey's money and he's saying that they should go to the police. If Davy wants to prove that it is really his. Give me my box and my money, will you? I cried, bursting into tears. The young man still replied, come to the police. And was dragging me against the donkey in a violent manner, as if there were any affinity between that animal and a magistrate. When he changed his mind, jumped into the cart, sat upon the box and exclaiming that he would drive to the police straight rattled away harder than ever. I ran after him as fast as I could, but I had no breath to call out with, and should not have dared to call out now if I had. I narrowly escaped being run over 20 times at least in half a mile. Now I lost him, Now I saw him, now I lost him. Now I was cut with a whip, now shouted at, now down in the mud, now up again, now running into somebody's arms, now running headlong at a post. At length, confused by fright and heat, and doubting whether half London might not by this time be turning out for my apprehension, I left the young man to go where he would with my box and money, and panting and crying, but never stopping, faced about for Greenwich, which I had understood was on the Dover Road, taking very little more out of the world towards the retreat of my Aunt Betsey than I had brought into it on the night when my arrival gave her so much umbrage. Thank you so much for listening. I'd love to know what you thought of the chapters. Is there anything you'd like me to clarify? Did something particularly interest you? Please go to my website, faithkmore.com, click on Contact and send me your questions and thoughts. Or you can click on the link in the Show Notes to contact me. I'll feature one or two of your entries at the start of the next episode. Speaking of links, don't forget to take a look at the other links in the Show Notes. You can learn more about me, check out our Merch Store, or become a member of the Storytime for Grown Ups online community. Before I go, I'd like to ask a quick favor. This is an independent podcast. It's produced, recorded and marketed by me, so I need your help. Spread the word about the show by posting about it on social media or texting a link to your friends. Subscribe, tap those five stars and leave a positive review wherever you're listening. If you are able to support the show financially, there's a link in the Show Notes to make a donation I would really, really appreciate it. Alright, everyone, story time is over. To be continue.