I gave him the best idea I could, in a few
words, of Mr. Micawber. He laughed heartily at my feeble portrait of that
gentleman, and said he was a man to know, and he must know him. 'But who do you
suppose our other friend is?' said I, in my turn.
'Heaven knows,' said Steerforth. 'Not a bore, I hope? I thought he looked a
little like one.'
'Traddles!' I replied, triumphantly.
'Who's he?' asked Steerforth, in his careless way.
'Don't you remember Traddles? Traddles in our room at Salem House?'
'Oh! That fellow!' said Steerforth, beating a lump of coal on the top of the
fire, with the poker. 'Is he as soft as ever? And where the deuce did you pick
him up?'
I extolled Traddles in reply, as highly as I could; for I felt that Steerforth
rather slighted him. Steerforth, dismissing the subject with a light nod, and a
smile, and the remark that he would be glad to see the old fellow too, for he
had always been an odd fish, inquired if I could give him anything to eat?
