with the bad boy who
"didn't care", and became food for lions--a grander kind of going to
the dogs, I suppose. What old women call the horrors, have been creeping
over me from head to foot. I have been afraid of myself.'

'You are afraid of nothing else, I think,' said I.

'Perhaps not, and yet may have enough to be afraid of too,' he answered.
'Well! So it goes by! I am not about to be hipped again, David; but I
tell you, my good fellow, once more, that it would have been well for me
(and for more than me) if I had had a steadfast and judicious father!'

His face was always full of expression, but I never saw it express such
a dark kind of earnestness as when he said these words, with his glance
bent on the fire.

'So much for that!' he said, making as if he tossed something light
into the air, with his hand. "'Why, being gone, I am a man again," like
Macbeth. And now for dinner! If I have not (Macbeth-like) broken up the
feast with most admired disorder, Daisy.'

'But where are they all, I wonder!' said I.

'God knows,' said Steerforth. 'After strolling to the ferry looking
for you, I strolled in here and found the place deserted. That set me
thinking, and you found me thinking.'

The advent of Mrs. Gummidge with a basket, explained how the house had
happened to be empty. She had hurried out to buy something that was
needed, against Mr. Peggotty's return with the tide; and had left the
door open in the meanwhile, lest Ham and little Em'ly, with whom it was
an early night, should come home while she was gone. Steerforth, after
very much improving Mrs. Gummidge's spirits by a cheerful salutation and
a jocose embrace, took my arm, and hurried me away.

He had improved his own spirits, no less than Mrs. Gummidge's, for
they were again at their usual flow, and he was full of vivacious
conversation as we went along.

'And so,' he said, gaily, 'we abandon this buccaneer life tomorrow, do
we?'

'So we agreed,' I returned. 'And our places by the coach are taken, you
know.'

'Ay! there's no help for it, I suppose,' said Steerforth. 'I have
almost forgotten that there is anything to do in the world but to go out
tossing on the sea here. I wish there was not.'

'As long as the novelty should last,' said I, laughing.

'Like enough,' he returned; 'though there's a sarcastic meaning in that
observation for an amiable piece of innocence like my young friend.
Well! I dare say I am a capricious fellow, David. I know I a