'Ury, Ury!' cried the mother, 'be umble and make terms. I know my
son will be umble, gentlemen, if you'll give him time to think.
Mr. Copperfield, I'm sure you know that he was always very umble,
sir!'

It was singular to see how the mother still held to the old trick,
when the son had abandoned it as useless.

'Mother,' he said, with an impatient bite at the handkerchief in
which his hand was wrapped, 'you had better take and fire a loaded
gun at me.'

'But I love you, Ury,' cried Mrs. Heep. And I have no doubt she
did; or that he loved her, however strange it may appear; though,
to be sure, they were a congenial couple. 'And I can't bear to
hear you provoking the gentlemen, and endangering of yourself more.
I told the gentleman at first, when he told me upstairs it was come
to light, that I would answer for your being umble, and making
amends. Oh, see how umble I am, gentlemen, and don't mind him!'

'Why, there's Copperfield, mother,' he angrily retorted, pointing
his lean finger at me, against whom all his animosity was levelled,
as the prime mover in the discovery; and I did not undeceive him;
'there's Copperfield, would have given you a hundred pound to say
less than you've blurted out!'

'I can't help it, Ury,' cried his mother. 'I can't see you running
into danger, through carrying your head so high. Better be umble,
as you always was.'

He remained for a little, biting the handkerchief, and then said to
me with a scowl:

'What more have you got to bring forward? If anything, go on with
it. What do you look at me for?'

Mr. Micawber promptly resumed his letter, glad to revert to a
performance with which he was so highly satisfied.

'"Third. And last. I am now in a condition to show, by - HEEP'S
- false books, and - HEEP'S - real memoranda, beginning with the
partially destroyed pocket-book (which I was unable to comprehend,
at the time of its accidental discovery by Mrs. Micawber, on our
taking possession of our present abode, in the locker or bin
devoted to the reception of the ashes calcined on our domestic
hearth), that the weaknesses, the faults, the very virtues, the
parental affections, and the sense of honour, of the unhappy Mr. W.
have been for years acted on by, and warped to the base purposes of
- HEEP. That Mr. W. has been for years deluded and plundered, in
every conceivable manner, to the pecuniary aggrandisement of the
avaricious, false, and grasping - HEEP. That the engrossing object
of- HEEP - was, next to gain, to subdue Mr. and Miss W. (of his
ulterior views in reference to the latter I say nothing) entirely
to himself. That his last act, completed but a few months since,
was to induce Mr. W. to execute a relinquishment of his share in
the partnership, and even a bill of sale on the very furniture of
his house, in consideration of a certain annuity, to be well and
truly paid by - HEEP - on the four common quarter-days in each and
every year. That these meshes; beginning with alarming and
falsified accounts of the estate of which Mr. W. is the receiver,
at a period when Mr. W. had launched into imprudent and ill-judged
speculations, and may not have had the money, for which he was
morally and legally responsible, in hand; going on with pretended
borrowings of money at enormous interest, really coming from - HEEP
- and by - HEEP - fraudulently obtained or withheld from Mr. W.
himself, on pretence of such speculations or otherwise; perpetuated
by a miscellaneous catalogue of unscrupulous chicaneries -
gradually thickened, until the unhappy Mr. W. could see no world
beyond. Bankrupt, as he believed, alike in circumstances, in all
other hope, and in honour, his sole reliance was upon the monster
in the garb of man,"' - Mr. Micawber made a good deal of this, as
a new turn of expression, - '"who, by making himself necessary to
him, had achieved his destruction. All this I undertake to show.
Probably much more!"'

I whispered a few words to Agnes, who was weeping, half joyfully,
half sorrowfully, at my side; and there was a movement among us, as
if Mr. Micawber had finished. He said, with exceeding gravity,
'Pardon me,' and proceeded, with a mixture of the lowest spirits
and the most intense enjoyment, to the peroration of his letter.

'"I have now concluded. It merely remains for me to substantiate
these accusations; and then, with my ill-starred family, to
disappear from the landscape on which we appear to be an
encumbrance. That is soon done. It may be reasonably inferred
that our baby will first expire of inanition, as being the frailest
member of our circle; and that our twins will follow next in order.
So be it! For myself, my Canterbury Pilgrimage has done much;
imprisonment on civil process, and want, will soon do more. I
trust that the labour and hazard of an investigation - of which the
smallest results have been slowly pieced together, in the pressure
of arduous avocations, under grinding penurious apprehensions, at
rise of morn, at dewy eve, in the shadows of night, under the
watchful eye of one whom it were superfluous to call Demon -
combined with the struggle of parental Poverty to turn it, when
completed, to the right account, may be as the sprinkling of a few
drops of sweet water on my funeral pyre. I ask no more. Let it
be, in justice, merely said of me, as of a gallant and eminent
naval Hero, with whom I have no pretensions to cope, that what I
have done, I did, in despite of mercenary and selfish objects,

For England, home, and Beauty.

'"Remaining always, &c. &c., WILKINS MICAWBER."'

Much affected, but still intensely enjoying himself, Mr. Micawber
folded up his letter, and handed it with a bow to my aunt, as
something she might like to keep.