turn round and find nobody; for wherever my back was, there I imagined somebody always
to be. That cruel man with the wooden leg aggravated my sufferings. He was in authority;
and if he ever saw me leaning against a tree, or a wall, or the house, he roared out from his
lodge door in a stupendous voice, 'Hallo, you sir! You Copperfield! Show that badge
conspicuous, or I'll report you!' The playground was a bare gravelled yard, open to all the
back of the house and the offices; and I knew that the servants read it, and the butcher read
it, and the baker read it; that everybody, in a word, who came backwards and forwards to the
house, of a morning when I was ordered to walk there, read that I was to be taken care of,
for I bit, I recollect that I positively began to have a dread of myself, as a kind of wild boy
who did bite.
There was an old door in this playground, on which the boys had a custom of carving
their names. It was completely covered with such inscriptions. In my dread of the end of the
vacation and their coming back, I could not read a boy's name, without inquiring in what
tone and with what emphasis HE would read, 'Take care of him. He bites.' There was one
boy − a certain J. Steerforth − who cut his name very deep and very often, who, I conceived,
would read it in a rather strong voice, and afterwards pull my hair. There was another boy,
one Tommy Traddles, who I dreaded would make game of it, and pretend to be dreadfully
frightened of me. There was a third, George Demple, who I fancied would sing it. I have
looked, a little shrinking creature, at that door, until the owners of all the names − there were
five−and−forty of them in the school then, Mr. Mell said − seemed to send me to Coventry
by general acclamation, and to cry out, each in his own way, 'Take care of him. He bites!'
It was the same with the places at the desks and forms. It was the same with the groves
of deserted bedsteads I peeped at, on my way to, and when I was in, my own bed. I
remember dreaming night after night, of being with my mother as she used to be, or of going
to a party at Mr. Peggotty's, or of travelling outside the stage−coach, or of dining again with
my unfortunate friend the waiter, and in all these circumstances making people scream and
stare, by the unhappy disclosure that I had nothing on but my little night−shirt, and that
placard.
In the monotony of my life, and in my constant apprehension of the re−opening of the
school, it was such an insupportable affliction! I had long tasks every day to do with Mr.
Mell; but I did them, there being no Mr. and Miss Murdstone here, and got through them
without disgrace. Before, and after them, I walked about − supervised, as I have mentioned,
by the man with the wooden leg. How vividly I call to mind the damp about the house, the
green cracked flagstones in the court, an old leaky water−butt, and the discoloured trunks of
some of the grim trees, which seemed to have dripped more in the rain than other trees, and
to have blown less in the sun! At one we dined, Mr. Mell and I, at the upper end of a long
bare dining−room, full of deal tables, and smelling of fat. Then, we had more tasks until tea,
which Mr. Mell drank out of a blue teacup, and I out of a tin pot. All day long, and until
seven or eight in the evening, Mr. Mell, at his own detached desk in the schoolroom, worked
hard with pen, ink, ruler, books, and writing− paper, making out the bills (as I found) for last
David Copperfield
CHAPTER 5 − I am sent away from HOME 74