 free to come down
to his room, if he were there, and if I desired it for company's sake, and to
sit with him. I thanked him for his consideration; and, as he went down soon
afterwards, and I was not tired, went down too, with a book in my hand, to avail
myself, for half-an-hour, of his permission.
    But, seeing a light in the little round office, and immediately feeling
myself attracted towards Uriah Heep, who had a sort of fascination for me, I
went in there instead. I found Uriah reading a great fat book, with such
demonstrative attention, that his lank forefinger followed up every line as he
read, and made clammy tracks along the page (or so I fully believed) like a
snail.
    »You are working late to-night, Uriah,« says I.
    »Yes, Master Copperfield,« says Uriah.
    As I was getting on the stool opposite, to talk to him more conveniently, I
observed that he had not such a thing as a smile about him, and that he could
only widen his mouth and make two hard creases down his cheeks, one on each
side, to stand for one.
    »I am not doing office-work, Master Copperfield,« said Uriah.
    »What work, then?« I asked.
    »I am improving my legal knowledge, Master Copperfield,« said Uriah. »I am
going through Tidd's Practice. Oh, what a writer Mr. Tidd is, Master
Copperfield!«
    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.
    »I am well aware that I am the umblest person going,« said Uriah Heep,
modestly; »let
