! I want you to
stand between Rosa Dartle and me, and keep us asunder.«
    »Would you love each other too much, without me?«
    »Yes; or hate,« laughed Steerforth; »no matter which. Come! Say the next
day!«
    I said the next day; and he put on his great-coat and lighted his cigar, and
set off to walk home. Finding him in this intention, I put on my own great-coat
(but did not light my own cigar, having had enough of that for one while) and
walked with him as far as the open road; a dull road, then, at night. He was in
great spirits all the way; and when we parted, and I looked after him going so
gallantly and airily homeward, I thought of his saying, »Ride on over all
obstacles, and win the race!« and wished, for the first time, that he had some
worthy race to run.
    I was undressing in my own room, when Mr. Micawber's letter tumbled on the
floor. Thus reminded of it, I broke the seal and read as follows. It was dated
an hour and a half before dinner. I am not sure whether I have mentioned that,
when Mr. Micawber was at any particularly desperate crisis, he used a sort of
legal phraseology: which he seemed to think equivalent to winding up his
affairs.
 
        »Sir - for I dare not say my dear Copperfield,
            It is expedient that I should inform you that the undersigned is
        Crushed. Some flickering efforts to spare you the premature knowledge of
        his calamitous position, you may observe in him this day; but hope has
        sunk beneath the horizon, and the undersigned is Crushed.
            The present communication is penned within the personal range (I
        cannot call it the society) of an individual, in a state closely
        bordering on intoxication, employed by a broker. That individual is in
        legal possession of the premises, under a distress for rent. His
        inventory includes, not only the chattels and effects of every
        description belonging to the undersigned, as yearly tenant of this
        habitation, but also those appertaining to Mr. Thomas Traddles, lodger,
        a member of the Honourable Society of the Inner Temple.
            If any drop of gloom were wanting in the overflowing cup, which is
        now commended (in the language of an immortal Writer) to the lips of the
        undersigned, it would be found in the fact, that a friendly acceptance
        granted to the undersigned, by the before-mentioned Mr. Thomas Traddles,
        for
