HAPTER 24. MY FIRST DISSIPATION

It was a wonderfully fine thing to have that lofty castle to myself, and
to feel, when I shut my outer door, like Robinson Crusoe, when he had
got into his fortification, and pulled his ladder up after him. It was a
wonderfully fine thing to walk about town with the key of my house in my
pocket, and to know that I could ask any fellow to come home, and make
quite sure of its being inconvenient to nobody, if it were not so to me.
It was a wonderfully fine thing to let myself in and out, and to come
and go without a word to anyone, and to ring Mrs. Crupp up, gasping,
from the depths of the earth, when I wanted her--and when she was
disposed to come. All this, I say, was wonderfully fine; but I must say,
too, that there were times when it was very dreary.

It was fine in the morning, particularly in the fine mornings. It looked
a very fresh, free life, by daylight: still fresher, and more free, by
sunlight. But as the day declined, the life seemed to go down too. I
don't know how it was; it seldom looked well by candle-light. I wanted
somebody to talk to, then. I missed Agnes. I found a tremendous blank,
in the place of that smiling repository of my confidence. Mrs. Crupp
appeared to be a long way off. I thought about my predecessor, who had
died of drink and smoke; and I could have wished he had been so good as
to live, and not bother me with his decease.

After two days and nights, I felt as if I had lived there for a year,
and yet I was not an hour older, but was quite as much tormented by my
own youthfulness as ever.

Steerforth not yet appearing, which induced me to apprehend that he must
be ill, I left the Commons early on the third day, and walked out to
Highgate. Mrs. Steerforth was very glad to see me, and said that he had
gone away with one of his Oxford friends to see another who lived near
St. Albans, but that she expected him to return tomorrow. I was so fond
of him, that I felt quite jealous of his Oxford friends.

As she pressed me to stay to dinner, I remained, and I believe we talked
about nothing but him all day. I told her how much the people liked him
at Yarmouth, and what a delightful companion he had been. Miss Dartle
was full of hints and mysterious questions, but took a great interest
in all our proceedings there, and said, 'Was it really though?' and so
forth, so often, that she got everything out of me she wanted to know.
Her appearance was exactly what I hav