“Yes. He was a retired—what do you call it!—draper—cloth-merchant—and had made me his heir. But he didn’t like me when I grew up.”
“Do you really mean that?” said I. He was so composed, that I fancied he must have some other meaning.
“Oh dear, yes, Copperfield! I mean it,” replied Traddles. “It was an unfortunate thing, but he didn’t like me at all. He said I wasn’t at all what he expected, and so he married his housekeeper.”
“And what did you do?” I asked.
“I didn’t do anything in particular,” said Traddles. “I lived with them, waiting to be put out in the world, until his gout unfortunately flew to his stomach—and so he died, and so she married a young man, and so I wasn’t provided for.”
“Did you get nothing, Traddles, after all?”
“Oh dear, yes!” said Traddles. “I got fifty pounds. I had never been brought up to any profession, and at first I was at a loss what to do for myself. However, I began, with the assistance of the son of a professional man, who had been to Salem House—Yawler, with his nose on one side. Do you recollect him?”
No. He had not been there with me; all the noses were straight in my day.
“It don’t matter,” said Traddles. “I began, by means of his assistance, to copy law writings. That didn’t answer very well; and then I began to state cases for them, and make abstracts, and that sort of work. For I am a plodding kind of fellow, Copperfield, and had learnt the way of doing such things pithily. Well! That put it in my head to enter myself as a law student; and that ran away with all that was left of the fifty pounds.