rfield,' he rejoined--'I beg your pardon,
Mister Copperfield, but the other comes so natural, I don't like that
you should put a constraint upon yourself to ask a numble person like me
to your ouse.'

'There is no constraint in the case,' said I. 'Will you come?'

'I should like to, very much,' replied Uriah, with a writhe.

'Well, then, come along!' said I.

I could not help being rather short with him, but he appeared not to
mind it. We went the nearest way, without conversing much upon the road;
and he was so humble in respect of those scarecrow gloves, that he
was still putting them on, and seemed to have made no advance in that
labour, when we got to my place.

I led him up the dark stairs, to prevent his knocking his head against
anything, and really his damp cold hand felt so like a frog in mine,
that I was tempted to drop it and run away. Agnes and hospitality
prevailed, however, and I conducted him to my fireside. When I lighted
my candles, he fell into meek transports with the room that was revealed
to him; and when I heated the coffee in an unassuming block-tin vessel
in which Mrs. Crupp delighted to prepare it (chiefly, I believe, because
it was not intended for the purpose, being a shaving-pot, and because
there was a patent invention of great price mouldering away in the
pantry), he professed so much emotion, that I could joyfully have
scalded him.

'Oh, really, Master Copperfield,--I mean Mister Copperfield,' said
Uriah, 'to see you waiting upon me is what I never could have expected!
But, one way and another, so many things happen to me which I never
could have expected, I am sure, in my umble station, that it seems
to rain blessings on my ed. You have heard something, I des-say, of a
change in my expectations, Master Copperfield,--I should say, Mister
Copperfield?'

As he sat on my sofa, with his long knees drawn up under his coffee-cup,
his hat and gloves upon the ground close to him, his spoon going softly
round and round, his shadowless red eyes, which looked as if they had
scorched their lashes off, turned towards me without looking at me, the
disagreeable dints I have formerly described in his nostrils coming and
going with his breath, and a snaky undulation pervading his frame from
his chin to his boots, I decided in my own mind that I disliked him
intensely. It made me very uncomfortable to have him for a guest, for I
was young then, and unused to disguise what I so strongly felt.

'You