fall
upon your family's neck; but the member of your family, who is now in
attendance, shall have no genial warmth frozen by me.'

Mr. Micawber withdrew, and was absent some little time; in the course of
which Mrs. Micawber was not wholly free from an apprehension that words
might have arisen between him and the Member. At length the same boy
reappeared, and presented me with a note written in pencil, and headed,
in a legal manner, 'Heep v. Micawber'. From this document, I learned
that Mr. Micawber being again arrested, 'Was in a final paroxysm of
despair; and that he begged me to send him his knife and pint pot, by
bearer, as they might prove serviceable during the brief remainder of
his existence, in jail. He also requested, as a last act of friendship,
that I would see his family to the Parish Workhouse, and forget that
such a Being ever lived.

Of course I answered this note by going down with the boy to pay the
money, where I found Mr. Micawber sitting in a corner, looking darkly at
the Sheriff 's Officer who had effected the capture. On his release,
he embraced me with the utmost fervour; and made an entry of the
transaction in his pocket-book--being very particular, I recollect,
about a halfpenny I inadvertently omitted from my statement of the
total.

This momentous pocket-book was a timely reminder to him of another
transaction. On our return to the room upstairs (where he accounted for
his absence by saying that it had been occasioned by circumstances over
which he had no control), he took out of it a large sheet of paper,
folded small, and quite covered with long sums, carefully worked. From
the glimpse I had of them, I should say that I never saw such sums
out of a school ciphering-book. These, it seemed, were calculations of
compound interest on what he called 'the principal amount of forty-one,
ten, eleven and a half', for various periods. After a careful
consideration of these, and an elaborate estimate of his resources,
he had come to the conclusion to select that sum which represented the
amount with compound interest to two years, fifteen calendar months, and
fourteen days, from that date. For this he had drawn a note-of-hand
with great neatness, which he handed over to Traddles on the spot,
a discharge of his debt in full (as between man and man), with many
acknowledgements.

'I have still a presentiment,' said Mrs. Micawber, pensively shaking her
head, 'that my family will appear on board, befo