“My dear Copperfield,” returned Mr. Micawber, bursting into a state of much excitement, and turning pale, “if you ask after my employer as your friend, I am sorry for it; if you ask after him as my friend, I sardonically smile at it. In whatever capacity you ask after my employer, I beg, without offence to you, to limit my reply to this⁠—that whatever his state of health may be, his appearance is foxy: not to say diabolical. You will allow me, as a private individual, to decline pursuing a subject which has lashed me to the utmost verge of desperation in my professional capacity.”

I expressed my regret for having innocently touched upon a theme that roused him so much. “May I ask,” said I, “without any hazard of repeating the mistake, how my old friends Mr. and Miss Wickfield are?”