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Being very anxious to see the dear old fellow, nevertheless, I dispatched my dinner, in a manner not at all calculated to raise me in the opinion of the chief waiter, and hurried out by the back way. Number two in the Court was soon reached; and an inscription on the door-post informing me that Mr. Traddles occupied a set of chambers on the top storey, I ascended the staircase. A crazy old staircase I found it to be, feebly lighted on each landing by a club-headed little oil wick, dying away in a little dungeon of dirty glass.

In the course of my stumbling upstairs, I fancied I heard a pleasant sound of laughter; and not the laughter of an attorney or barrister, or attorney’s clerk or barrister’s clerk, but of two or three merry girls. Happening, however, as I stopped to listen, to put my foot in a hole where the Honourable Society of Gray’s Inn had left a plank deficient, I fell down with some noise, and when I recovered my footing all was silent.

Groping my way more carefully, for the rest of the journey, my heart beat high when I found the outer door, which had Mr. TRADDLES painted on it, open. I knocked. A considerable scuffling within ensued, but nothing else. I therefore knocked again.

A small sharp-looking lad, half-footboy and half-clerk, who was very much out of breath, but who looked at me as if he defied me to prove it legally, presented himself.

‘Is Mr. Traddles within?’ I said.

‘Yes, sir, but he’s engaged.’

‘I want to see him.’

After a moment’s survey of me, the sharp-looking lad decided to let me in; and opening the door wider for that purpose, admitted me, first, into a little closet of a hall, and next into a little sitting-room; where I came into the presence of my old friend (also out of breath), seated at a table, and bending over papers.

‘Good God!’ cried Traddles, looking up. ‘It’s Copperfield!’ and rushed into my arms, where I held him tight.

‘All well, my dear Traddles?’

‘All well, my dear, dear Copperfield, and nothing but good news!’

We cried with pleasure, both of us.

‘My dear fellow,’ said Traddles, rumpling his hair in his excitement, which was a most unnecessary operation, ‘my dearest Copperfield, my long-lost and most welcome friend, how glad I am to see you! How brown you are! How glad I am! Upon my life and honour, I never was so rejoiced, my beloved Copperfield, never!’

I was equally at a loss to express my emotions. I was quite unable to speak, at first.

‘My dear fellow!’ said Traddles. ‘And grown so famous! My glorious Copperfield! Good gracious me, WHEN did you come, WHERE have you come from, WHAT have you been doing?’

Never pausing for an answer to anything he said, Traddles, who had clapped me into an easy-chair by the fire, all this time impetuously stirred the fire with one hand, and pulled at my neck-kerchief with the other, under some wild delusion that it was a great-coat. Without putting down the poker, he now hugged me again; and I hugged him; and, both laughing, and both wiping our eyes, we both sat down, and shook hands across the hearth.

‘To think,’ said Traddles, ‘that you should have been so nearly coming home as you must have been, my dear old boy, and not at the ceremony!’

‘What ceremony, my dear Traddles?’

‘Good gracious me!’ cried Traddles, opening his eyes in his old way. ‘Didn’t you get my last letter?’

‘Certainly not, if it referred to any ceremony.’

‘Why, my dear Copperfield,’ said Traddles, sticking his hair upright with both hands, and then putting his hands on my knees, ‘I am married!’

‘Married!’ I cried joyfully.

‘Lord bless me, yes!’ said Traddles—‘by the Reverend Horace—to Sophy—down in Devonshire. Why, my dear boy, she’s behind the window curtain! Look here!’

To my amazement, the dearest girl in the world came at that same instant, laughing and blushing, from her place of concealment. And a more cheerful, amiable, honest, happy, bright-looking bride, I believe (as I could not help saying on the spot) the world never saw. I kissed her as an old acquaintance should, and wished them joy with all my might of heart.

‘Dear me,’ said Traddles, ‘what a delightful re-union this is! You are so extremely brown, my dear Copperfield! God bless my soul, how happy I am!’

‘And so am I,’ said I.

‘And I am sure I am!’ said the blushing and laughing Sophy.

‘We are all as happy as possible!’ said Traddles. ‘Even the girls are happy. Dear me, I declare I forgot them!’

‘Forgot?’ said I.

‘The girls,’ said Traddles. ‘Sophy’s sisters. They are staying with us. They have come to have a peep at London. The fact is, when—was it you that tumbled upstairs, Copperfield?’

‘It was,’ said I, laughing.

‘Well then, when you tumbled upstairs,’ said Traddles, ‘I was romping with the girls. In point of fact, we were playing at Puss in the Corner. But as that wouldn’t do in Westminster Hall, and as it wouldn’t look quite professional if they were seen by a client, they decamped. And they are now—listening, I have no doubt,’ said Traddles, glancing at the door of another room.

‘I am sorry,’ said I, laughing afresh, ‘to have occasioned such a dispersion.’

‘Upon my word,’ rejoined Traddles, greatly delighted, ‘if you had seen them running away, and running back again, after you had knocked, to pick up the combs they had dropped out of their hair, and going on in the maddest manner, you wouldn’t have said so. My love, will you fetch the girls?’

Sophy tripped away, and we heard her received in the adjoining room with a peal of laughter.

‘Really musical, isn’t it, my dear Copperfield?’ said Traddles. ‘It’s very agreeable to hear. It quite lights up these old rooms. To an unfortunate bachelor of a fellow who has lived alone all his life, you know, it’s positively delicious. It’s charming. Poor things, they have had a great loss in Sophy—who, I do assure you, Copperfield is, and ever was, the dearest girl!—and it gratifies me beyond expression to find them in such good spirits. The society of girls is a very delightful thing, Copperfield. It’s not professional, but it’s very delightful.’

Observing that he slightly faltered, and comprehending that in the goodness of his heart he was fearful of giving me some pain by what he had said, I expressed my concurrence with a heartiness that evidently relieved and pleased him greatly.