s do
me the favour to check that total?'

I did so and found it correct.

'To leave this metropolis,' said Mr. Micawber, 'and my friend Mr.
Thomas Traddles, without acquitting myself of the pecuniary part of this
obligation, would weigh upon my mind to an insupportable extent. I have,
therefore, prepared for my friend Mr. Thomas Traddles, and I now hold
in my hand, a document, which accomplishes the desired object. I beg
to hand to my friend Mr. Thomas Traddles my I.O.U. for forty-one, ten,
eleven and a half, and I am happy to recover my moral dignity, and to
know that I can once more walk erect before my fellow man!'

With this introduction (which greatly affected him), Mr. Micawber placed
his I.O.U. in the hands of Traddles, and said he wished him well in
every relation of life. I am persuaded, not only that this was quite
the same to Mr. Micawber as paying the money, but that Traddles himself
hardly knew the difference until he had had time to think about it. Mr.
Micawber walked so erect before his fellow man, on the strength of
this virtuous action, that his chest looked half as broad again when he
lighted us downstairs. We parted with great heartiness on both sides;
and when I had seen Traddles to his own door, and was going home alone,
I thought, among the other odd and contradictory things I mused upon,
that, slippery as Mr. Micawber was, I was probably indebted to some
compassionate recollection he retained of me as his boy-lodger, for
never having been asked by him for money. I certainly should not have
had the moral courage to refuse it; and I have no doubt he knew that (to
his credit be it written), quite as well as I did.

CHAPTER 37. A LITTLE COLD WATER

My new life had lasted for more than a week, and I was stronger than
ever in those tremendous practical resolutions that I felt the crisis
required. I continued to walk extremely fast, and to have a general idea
that I was getting on. I made it a rule to take as much out of myself
as I possibly could, in my way of doing everything to which I applied
my energies. I made a perfect victim of myself. I even entertained some
idea of putting myself on a vegetable diet, vaguely conceiving that, in
becoming a graminivorous animal, I should sacrifice to Dora.

As yet, little Dora was quite unconscious of my desperate firmness,
otherwise than as my letters darkly shadowed it forth. But another
Saturday came, and on that Saturday evening she was to be at M