“And then,” said Mr. Micawber, who was present, “I have no doubt I shall, please Heaven, begin to be beforehand with the world, and to live in a perfectly new manner, if⁠—in short, if anything turns up.”

By way of going in for anything that might be on the cards, I call to mind that Mr. Micawber, about this time, composed a petition to the House of Commons, praying for an alteration in the law of imprisonment for debt. I set down this remembrance here, because it is an instance to myself of the manner in which I fitted my old books to my altered life, and made stories for myself, out of the streets, and out of men and women; and how some main points in the character I shall unconsciously develop, I suppose, in writing my life, were gradually forming all this while.