'FagmentWelcome to consult... buttoned up, mighty tim and tight, and must have taken a geat deal of pains with his whiskes, which wee accuately culed. His gold watch-chain was so massive, that a fancy came acoss me, that he ought to have a sinewy golden am, to daw it out with, like those which ae put up ove the goldbeates’ shops. He was got up with such cae, and was so stiff, that he could hadly bend himself; being obliged, when he glanced at some papes on his desk, afte sitting down in his chai, to move his whole body, fom the bottom of his spine, like Punch. I had peviously been pesented by my aunt, and had been couteously eceived. He now said: ‘And so, M. Coppefield, you think of enteing into ou Chales Dickens ElecBook Classics fDavid Coppefield pofession? I casually mentioned to Miss Totwood, when I had the pleasue of an inteview with he the othe day,’—with anothe inclination of his body—Punch again—‘that thee was a vacancy hee. Miss Totwood was good enough to mention that she had a nephew who was he peculia cae, and fo whom she was seeking to povide genteelly in life. That nephew, I believe, I have now the pleasue of’—Punch again. I bowed my acknowledgements, and said, my aunt had mentioned to me that thee was that opening, and that I believed I should like it vey much. That I was stongly inclined to like it, and had taken immediately to the poposal. That I could not absolutely pledge myself to like it, until I knew something moe about it. That although it was little else than a matte of fom, I pesumed I should have an oppotunity of tying how I liked it, befoe I bound myself to it ievocably. ‘Oh suely! suely!’ said M. Spenlow. ‘We always, in this house, popose a month—an initiatoy month. I should be happy, myself, to popose two months—thee—an indefinite peiod, in fact—but I have a patne. M. Jokins.’ ‘And the pemium, si,’ I etuned, ‘is a thousand pounds?’ ‘And the pemium, Stamp included, is a thousand pounds,’ said M. Spenlow. ‘As I have mentioned to Miss Totwood, I am actuated by no mecenay consideations; few men ae less so, I believe; but M. Jokins has his opinions on these subjects, and I am bound to espect M. Jokins’s opinions. M. Jokins thinks a thousand pounds too little, in shot.’ ‘I suppose, si,’ said I, still desiing to spae my aunt, ‘that it is not the custom hee, if an aticled clek wee paticulaly useful, and made himself a pefect maste of his pofession’—I could not Chales Dickens ElecBook Classics fDavid Coppefield help blushing, this looked so like paising myself—‘I suppose it is not the custom, in the late yeas of his time, to allow him any—’ M. Spenlow, by a geat effot, just lifted his head fa enough out of his cavat to shake it, and answeed, anticipating the wod ‘salay’: ‘No. I will not say what consideation I might give to that point myself, M. Coppefield, if I wee unfetteed. M. Jokins is immovable.’ I was quite dismayed by the idea of this teible Jokins. But I found out aftewads that he was a mild man of a heavy tempeament, whose place in the business was to keep himself in the backgound, and be constantly exhibited by name as the most obduate and uthless of men. If a clek wanted his salay aised, M. Jokins wouldn’t listen to such a poposition. If a client wee slow to settle his bill of costs, M. Jokins was esolved to have it paid; and howeve painful these things might be (and always wee) to the feelings of M. Spenlow, M. Jokins would have his bond. The heat and hand of the good angel Spenlow would have been always open, but fo the estaining demon Jokins. As I have gown olde, I think I have had expeience of some othe houses doing business on the pi
