 but they rose to give the
Doctor good morning, and remained standing when they saw Mr. Wickfield and me.
    »A new boy, young gentlemen,« said the Doctor; »Trotwood Copperfield.«
    One Adams, who was the head-boy, then stepped out of his place and welcomed
me. He looked like a young clergyman, in his white cravat, but he was very
affable and good-humoured; and he showed me my place, and presented me to the
masters, in a gentlemanly way that would have put me at my ease, if anything
could.
    It seemed to me so long, however, since I had been among such boys, or among
any companions of my own age, except Mick Walker and Mealy Potatoes, that I felt
as strange as ever I have done in all my life. I was so conscious of having
passed through scenes of which they could have no knowledge, and of having
acquired experiences foreign to my age, appearance, and condition as one of
them, that I half believed it was an imposture to come there as an ordinary
little school-boy. I had become, in the Murdstone and Grinby time, however short
or long it may have been, so unused to the sports and games of boys, that I knew
I was awkward and inexperienced in the commonest things belonging to them.
Whatever I had learnt, had so slipped away from me in the sordid cares of my
life from day to night, that now, when I was examined about what I knew, I knew
nothing, and was put into the lowest form of the school. But, troubled as I was,
by my want of boyish skill, and of book-learning too, I was made infinitely more
uncomfortable by the consideration, that, in what I did know, I was much farther
removed from my companions than in what I did not. My mind ran upon what they
would think, if they knew of my familiar acquaintance with the King's Bench
Prison? Was there anything about me which would reveal my proceedings in
connexion with the Micawber family - all those pawnings, and sellings, and
suppers - in spite of myself? Suppose some of the boys had seen me coming
through Canterbury, wayworn and ragged, and should find me out? What would they
say, who made so light of money, if they could know how I had scraped my
halfpence together, for the purchase of my daily saveloy and beer, or my slices
of pudding? How would it affect them, who were so innocent of London life and
London streets
