I was equally at a loss to express my emotions. I was quite unable to speak, at first.

“My dear fellow!” said Traddles. “And grown so famous! My glorious Copperfield! Good gracious me, when did you come, where have you come from, what have you been doing?”

Never pausing for an answer to anything he said, Traddles, who had clapped me into an easy-chair by the fire, all this time impetuously stirred the fire with one hand, and pulled at my neck-kerchief with the other, under some wild delusion that it was a greatcoat. Without putting down the poker, he now hugged me again; and I hugged him; and, both laughing, and both wiping our eyes, we both sat down, and shook hands across the hearth.

“To think,” said Traddles, “that you should have been so nearly coming home as you must have been, my dear old boy, and not at the ceremony!”