My stool was such a tower of observation, that as I watched him reading on again, after this rapturous exclamation, and following up the lines with his forefinger, I observed that his nostrils, which were thin and pointed, with sharp dints in them, had a singular and most uncomfortable way of expanding and contracting themselves⁠—that they seemed to twinkle instead of his eyes, which hardly ever twinkled at all.

“I suppose you are quite a great lawyer?” I said, after looking at him for some time.

“Me, Master Copperfield?” said Uriah. “Oh, no! I’m a very ’umble person.”

It was no fancy of mine about his hands, I observed; for he frequently ground the palms against each other as if to squeeze them dry and warm, besides often wiping them, in a stealthy way, on his pocket-handkerchief.