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The Personal History And Experience Of David Copperfield The Younger

CHAPTER 61 :  I AM SHOWN TWO INTERESTING PENITENTS

IN PRINT

 

Page 4

After we had both laughed heartily, Traddles wound up by looking with a smile at the fire, and saying, in his forgiving way, 'Old Creakle!'

'I have a letter from that old - Rascal here,' said I. For I never was less disposed to forgive him the way he used to batter Traddles, than when I saw Traddles so ready to forgive him himself.

'From Creakle the schoolmaster?' exclaimed Traddles. 'No!'

'Among the persons who are attracted to me in my rising fame and fortune,' said I, looking over my letters, 'and who discover that they were always much attached to me, is the self-same Creakle. He is not a schoolmaster now, Traddles. He is retired. He is a Middlesex Magistrate.'

I thought Traddles might be surprised to hear it, but he was not so at all.

'How do you suppose he comes to be a Middlesex Magistrate?' said I.

'Oh dear me!' replied Traddles, 'it would be very difficult to answer that question. Perhaps he voted for somebody, or lent money to somebody, or bought something of somebody, or otherwise obliged somebody, or jobbed for somebody, who knew somebody who got the lieutenant of the county to nominate him for the commission.'

'On the commission he is, at any rate,' said I. 'And he writes to me here, that he will be glad to show me, in operation, the only true system of prison discipline; the only unchallengeable way of making sincere and lasting converts and penitents - which, you know, is by solitary confinement. What do you say?'

'To the system?' inquired Traddles, looking grave.

'No. To my accepting the offer, and your going with me?'

'I don't object,' said Traddles.

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