 what the sun was to two stars.
    Steerforth continued his protection of me, and proved a very useful friend,
since nobody dared to annoy one whom he honoured with his countenance. He
couldn't - or at all events he didn't - defend me from Mr. Creakle, who was very
severe with me; but whenever I had been treated worse than usual, he always told
me that I wanted a little of his pluck, and that he wouldn't have stood it
himself; which I felt he intended for encouragement, and considered to be very
kind of him. There was one advantage, and only one that I know of, in Mr.
Creakle's severity. He found my placard in his way when he came up or down
behind the form on which I sat, and wanted to make a cut at me in passing; for
this reason it was soon taken off, and I saw it no more.
    An accidental circumstance cemented the intimacy between Steerforth and me,
in a manner that inspired me with great pride and satisfaction, though it
sometimes led to inconvenience. It happened on one occasion, when he was doing
me the honour of talking to me in the playground, that I hazarded the
observation that something or somebody - I forget what now - was like something
or somebody in Peregrine Pickle. He said nothing at the time; but when I was
going to bed at night, asked me if I had got that book?
    I told him no, and explained how it was that I had read it, and all those
other books of which I have made mention.
    »And do you recollect them?« Steerforth said.
    Oh, yes, I replied; I had a good memory, and I believed I recollected them
very well.
    »Then I tell you what, young Copperfield,« said Steerforth, »you shall tell
'em to me. I can't get to sleep very early at night, and I generally wake rather
early in the morning. We'll go over 'em one after another. We'll make some
regular Arabian Nights of it.«
    I felt extremely flattered by this arrangement, and we commenced carrying it
into execution that very evening. What ravages I committed on my favourite
authors in the course of my interpretation of them, I am not in a condition to
say, and should be very unwilling to know; but I had a profound faith in them,
and I had, to the best of my belief, a simple earnest manner of narrating what I
did narrate; and these qualities
