"Jack Maldon will never be very busy in getting either, I expect," said Doctor Strong, rubbing his chin thoughtfully.
"Perhaps not," said Mr. Wickfield; "and you bring me back to the question, with an apology for digressing. No, I have not been able to dispose of Mr. Jack Maldon yet. I believe," he said this with some hesitation, "I penetrate your motive, and it makes the thing more difficult."
"My motive," returned Dr. Strong, "is to make some suitable provision for a cousin, and an old playfellow, of Annie's."
"Yes, I know," said Mr. Wickfield; "at home or abroad."
"Aye!" replied the Doctor, apparently wondering why he emphasised those words so much. "At home or abroad."
"Your own expression, you know," said Mr. Wickfield. "Or abroad."
"Surely," the Doctor answered. "Surely. One or other."
"One or other? Have you no choice?" asked Mr. Wickfield.
"No," returned the Doctor.
"No?" with astonishment.
"Not the least."
"No motive," said Mr.Wickfield, "for meaning abroad, and not at home?"
"No," returned the Doctor.
"I am bound to believe you, and of course I do believe you," said Mr. Wickfield. "It might have simplified my office very much, if I had known it before. But I confess I entertained another impression."
Doctor Strong regarded him with a puzzled and doubting look, which almost immediately subsided into a smile that gave me great encouragement; for it was full of amiability and sweetness, and there was a simplicity in it, and indeed in his whole manner, when the studious, pondering frost upon it was got through, very attractive and hopeful to a young scholar like me. Repeating "no," and "not the least," and other short assurances to the same purport, Doctor Strong jogged on before us, at a queer, uneven pace; and we followed: Mr. Wickfield looking grave, I observed, and shaking his head to himself, without knowing that I saw him.
The school-room was a pretty large hall, on the quietest side of the house, confronted by the stately stare of some half-dozen of the great urns, and commanding a peep of an old secluded garden belonging to the Doctor, where the peaches were ripening on the sunny south wall. There were two great aloes, in tubs, on the turf outside the windows; the broad hard leaves of which plant (looking as if they were made of painted tin) have ever since, by association, been symbolical to me of silence and retirement. About five-and-twenty boys were studiously engaged at their books when we went in, but they rose to give the Doctor good morning, and remained standing when they saw Mr. Wickfield and me.
"A new boy, young gentlemen," said the Doctor; "Trotwood Copperfield."
One Adams, who was the head-boy, then stepped out of his place and welcomed me. He looked like a young clergyman, in his white cravat, but he was very affable and good-humored; and he showed me my place, and presented me to the masters, in a gentlemanly way that would have put me at my ease, if anything could.
It seemed to me so long, however, since I had been among such boys, or among any companions of my own age, except Mick Walker and Mealey
