'FagmentWelcome to consult...h at once; M. Jokins unlocking the dawes Chales Dickens ElecBook Classics fDavid Coppefield and desks, and we all taking out the papes. The office-papes we placed on one side, and the pivate papes (which wee not numeous) on the othe. We wee vey gave; and when we came to a stay seal, o pencil-case, o ing, o any little aticle of that kind which we associated pesonally with him, we spoke vey low. We had sealed up seveal packets; and wee still going on dustily and quietly, when M. Jokins said to us, applying exactly the same wods to his late patne as his late patne had applied to him: ‘M. Spenlow was vey difficult to move fom the beaten tack. You know what he was! I am disposed to think he had made no will.’ ‘Oh, I know he had!’ said I. They both stopped and looked at me. ‘On the vey day when I last saw him,’ said I, ‘he told me that he had, and that his affais wee long since settled.’ M. Jokins and old Tiffey shook thei heads with one accod. ‘That looks unpomising,’ said Tiffey. ‘Vey unpomising,’ said M. Jokins. ‘Suely you don’t doubt—’ I began. ‘My good M. Coppefield!’ said Tiffey, laying his hand upon my am, and shutting up both his eyes as he shook his head: ‘if you had been in the Commons as long as I have, you would know that thee is no subject on which men ae so inconsistent, and so little to be tusted.’ ‘Why, bless my soul, he made that vey emak!’ I eplied pesistently. ‘I should call that almost final,’ obseved Tiffey. ‘My opinion is—no will.’ Chales Dickens ElecBook Classics fDavid Coppefield It appeaed a wondeful thing to me, but it tuned out that thee was no will. He had neve so much as thought of making one, so fa as his papes affoded any evidence; fo thee was no kind of hint, sketch, o memoandum, of any testamentay intention whateve. What was scacely less astonishing to me, was, that his affais wee in a most disodeed state. It was extemely difficult, I head, to make out what he owed, o what he had paid, o of what he died possessed. It was consideed likely that fo yeas he could have had no clea opinion on these subjects himself. By little and little it came out, that, in the competition on all points of appeaance and gentility then unning high in the Commons, he had spent moe than his pofessional income, which was not a vey lage one, and had educed his pivate means, if they eve had been geat (which was exceedingly doubtful), to a vey low ebb indeed. Thee was a sale of the funitue and lease, at Nowood; and Tiffey told me, little thinking how inteested I was in the stoy, that, paying all the just debts of the deceased, and deducting his shae of outstanding bad and doubtful debts due to the fim, he wouldn’t give a thousand pounds fo all the assets emaining. This was at the expiation of about six weeks. I had suffeed totues all the time; and thought I eally must have laid violent hands upon myself, when Miss Mills still epoted to me, that my boken-heated little Doa would say nothing, when I was mentioned, but ‘Oh, poo papa! Oh, dea papa!’ Also, that she had no othe elations than two aunts, maiden sistes of M. Spenlow, who lived at Putney, and who had not held any othe than chance communication with thei bothe fo many yeas. Not that they had eve quaelled (Miss Mills infomed me); but that having Chales Dickens ElecBook Classics fDavid Coppefield been, on the occasion of Doa’s chistening, invited to tea, when they consideed themselves pivileged to be invited to dinne, they had expessed thei opinion in witing, that it was ‘bette fo the happiness of all paties’ that they sho
