Uriah, more blue than white at these words, made a dart at the letter, as if to tear it in pieces. Mr. Micawber, with a perfect miracle of dexterity or luck, caught his advancing knuckles with the ruler, and disabled his right hand. It dropped at the wrist, as if it were broken. The blow sounded as if it had fallen on wood.
“The Devil take you!” said Uriah, writhing in a new way with pain. “I’ll be even with you.”
“Approach me again, you—you—you Heep of infamy,” gasped Mr. Micawber, “and if your head is human, I’ll break it. Come on, come on!”
I think I never saw anything more ridiculous—I was sensible of it, even at the time—than Mr. Micawber making broadsword guards with the ruler, and crying, “Come on!” while Traddles and I pushed him back into a corner, from which, as often as we got him into it, he persisted in emerging again.
His enemy, muttering to himself, after wringing his wounded hand for some time, slowly drew off his neck-kerchief and bound it up; then held it in his other hand, and sat upon his table with his sullen face looking down.
Mr. Micawber, when he was sufficiently cool, proceeded with his letter.
“ ‘The stipendiary emoluments in consideration of which I entered into the service of— Heep ,’ ” always pausing before that word and uttering it with astonishing vigour, “ ‘were not defined, beyond the pittance of twenty-two shillings and six per week. The rest was left contingent on the value of my professional exertions; in other and more expressive words, on the baseness of my nature, the cupidity of my motives, the poverty of my family, the general moral (or rather immoral) resemblance between myself and— Heep . Need I say, that it soon became necessary for me to solicit from— Heep —pecuniary