“About Mr. Wickfield,” I suggested.

“Oh! Yes, truly,” said Uriah. “Ah! Great imprudence, Master Copperfield. It’s a topic that I wouldn’t touch upon, to any soul but you. Even to you I can only touch upon it, and no more. If anyone else had been in my place during the last few years, by this time he would have had Mr. Wickfield (oh, what a worthy man he is, Master Copperfield, too!) under his thumb. Un⁠—der⁠—his thumb,” said Uriah, very slowly, as he stretched out his cruel-looking hand above my table, and pressed his own thumb upon it, until it shook, and shook the room.

If I had been obliged to look at him with his splay foot on Mr. Wickfield’s head, I think I could scarcely have hated him more.