 augur all sorts of good from your sensible
decision.«
    »Madam, you do us a great deal of honour,« he rejoined. He then referred to
a memorandum. »With respect to the pecuniary assistance enabling us to launch
our frail canoe on the ocean of enterprise, I have reconsidered that important
business point; and would beg to propose my notes of hand - drawn, it is
needless to stipulate, on stamps of the amounts respectively required by the
various Acts of Parliament applying to such securities - at eighteen,
twenty-four, and thirty months. The proposition I originally submitted, was
twelve, eighteen, and twenty-four; but I am apprehensive that such an
arrangement might not allow sufficient time for the requisite amount of -
Something - to turn up. We might not,« said Mr. Micawber, looking round the room
as if it represented several hundred acres of highly cultivated land, »on the
first responsibility becoming due, have been successful in our harvest, or we
might not have got our harvest in. Labour, I believe, is sometimes difficult to
obtain in that portion of our colonial possessions where it will be our lot to
combat with the teeming soil.«
    »Arrange it in any way you please, sir« said my aunt.
    »Madam,« he replied, »Mrs. Micawber and myself are deeply sensible of the
very considerate kindness of our friends and patrons. What I wish is, to be
perfectly business-like, and perfectly punctual. Turning over, as we are about
to turn over, an entirely new leaf; and falling back, as we are now in the act
of falling back, for a Spring of no common magnitude; it is important to my
sense of self-respect, besides being an example to my son, that these
arrangements should be concluded as between man and man.«
    I don't know that Mr. Micawber attached any meaning to this last phrase; I
don't know that anybody ever does, or did; but he appeared to relish it
uncommonly, and repeated, with an impressive cough, »as between man and man.«
    »I propose,« said Mr. Micawber, »Bills - a convenience to the mercantile
world, for which, I believe, we are originally indebted to the Jews, who appear
to me to have had a devilish deal too much to do with them ever since - because
they are negotiable. But if a Bond, or any other description of security, would
be preferred, I should be happy to execute any such instrument. As
