just short of
that I should see a yard, which I was to cross, and keep straight on
until I saw a turnkey. All this I did; and when at last I did see a
turnkey (poor little fellow that I was!), and thought how, when Roderick
Random was in a debtors' prison, there was a man there with nothing
on him but an old rug, the turnkey swam before my dimmed eyes and my
beating heart.

Mr. Micawber was waiting for me within the gate, and we went up to his
room (top story but one), and cried very much. He solemnly conjured me,
I remember, to take warning by his fate; and to observe that if a man
had twenty pounds a-year for his income, and spent nineteen pounds
nineteen shillings and sixpence, he would be happy, but that if he
spent twenty pounds one he would be miserable. After which he borrowed a
shilling of me for porter, gave me a written order on Mrs. Micawber for
the amount, and put away his pocket-handkerchief, and cheered up.

We sat before a little fire, with two bricks put within the rusted
grate, one on each side, to prevent its burning too many coals; until
another debtor, who shared the room with Mr. Micawber, came in from the
bakehouse with the loin of mutton which was our joint-stock repast.
Then I was sent up to 'Captain Hopkins' in the room overhead, with Mr.
Micawber's compliments, and I was his young friend, and would Captain
Hopkins lend me a knife and fork.

Captain Hopkins lent me the knife and fork, with his compliments to Mr.
Micawber. There was a very dirty lady in his little room, and two wan
girls, his daughters, with shock heads of hair. I thought it was better
to borrow Captain Hopkins's knife and fork, than Captain Hopkins's comb.
The Captain himself was in the last extremity of shabbiness, with large
whiskers, and an old, old brown great-coat with no other coat below it.
I saw his bed rolled up in a corner; and what plates and dishes and pots
he had, on a shelf; and I divined (God knows how) that though the two
girls with the shock heads of hair were Captain Hopkins's children, the
dirty lady was not married to Captain Hopkins. My timid station on his
threshold was not occupied more than a couple of minutes at most; but
I came down again with all this in my knowledge, as surely as the knife
and fork were in my hand.

There was something gipsy-like and agreeable in the dinner, after all.
I took back Captain Hopkins's knife and fork early in the afternoon,
and went home to comfort Mrs. Micawber with