'FagmentWelcome to consult...Fleet Steet; o I have stolled, at such a time, as fa as Covent Gaden Maket, and staed at the pineapples. I was fond of wandeing about the Adelphi, because it was a mysteious place, with those dak aches. I see myself emeging one evening fom some of these aches, on a little public-house close to the ive, with an open space befoe it, whee some coal-heaves wee dancing; to look at whom I sat down upon a bench. I wonde what they thought of me! I was such a child, and so little, that fequently when I went into the ba of a stange public-house fo a glass of ale o pote, to moisten what I had had fo dinne, they wee afaid to give it me. I emembe one hot evening I went into the ba of a public-house, and said to the landlod: ‘What is you best—you vey best—ale a glass?’ Fo it was a special occasion. I don’t know what. It may have been my Chales Dickens ElecBook Classics fDavid Coppefield bithday. ‘Twopence-halfpenny,’ says the landlod, ‘is the pice of the Genuine Stunning ale.’ ‘Then,’ says I, poducing the money, ‘just daw me a glass of the Genuine Stunning, if you please, with a good head to it.’ The landlod looked at me in etun ove the ba, fom head to foot, with a stange smile on his face; and instead of dawing the bee, looked ound the sceen and said something to his wife. She came out fom behind it, with he wok in he hand, and joined him in suveying me. Hee we stand, all thee, befoe me now. The landlod in his shit-sleeves, leaning against the ba window-fame; his wife looking ove the little half-doo; and I, in some confusion, looking up at them fom outside the patition. They asked me a good many questions; as, what my name was, how old I was, whee I lived, how I was employed, and how I came thee. To all of which, that I might commit nobody, I invented, I am afaid, appopiate answes. They seved me with the ale, though I suspect it was not the Genuine Stunning; and the landlod’s wife, opening the little half-doo of the ba, and bending down, gave me my money back, and gave me a kiss that was half admiing and half compassionate, but all womanly and good, I am sue. I know I do not exaggeate, unconsciously and unintentionally, the scantiness of my esouces o the difficulties of my life. I know that if a shilling wee given me by M. Quinion at any time, I spent it in a dinne o a tea. I know that I woked, fom moning until night, with common men and boys, a shabby child. I know that I lounged about the steets, insufficiently and unsatisfactoily fed. I know that, but fo the mecy of God, I might easily have been, fo any cae that was taken of me, a little obbe o a little vagabond. Chales Dickens ElecBook Classics fDavid Coppefield Yet I held some station at Mudstone and Ginby’s too. Besides that M. Quinion did what a caeless man so occupied, and dealing with a thing so anomalous, could, to teat me as one upon a diffeent footing fom the est, I neve said, to man o boy, how it was that I came to be thee, o gave the least indication of being soy that I was thee. That I suffeed in secet, and that I suffeed exquisitely, no one eve knew but I. How much I suffeed, it is, as I have said aleady, uttely beyond my powe to tell. But I kept my own counsel, and I did my wok. I knew fom the fist, that, if I could not do my wok as well as any of the est, I could not hold myself above slight and contempt. I soon became at least as expeditious and as skilful as eithe of the othe boys. Though pefectly familia with them, my conduct and manne wee diffeent enough fom theis to place a space between us.
