When I lived at home with papa and mama, I really should have hardly understood what the word meant, in the sense in which I now employ it, but experientia does it,--as papa used to say.' I cannot satisfy myself whether she told me that Mr.Micawber had been an officer in the Marines, or whether I have imagined it.

I only know that I believe to this hour that he WAS in the Marines once upon a time, without knowing why.

He was a sort of town traveller for a number of miscellaneous houses, now; but made little or nothing of it, I am afraid.
'If Mr.Micawber's creditors will not give him time,' said Mrs.
Micawber, 'they must take the consequences; and the sooner they bring it to an issue the better.

Blood cannot be obtained from a stone, neither can anything on account be obtained at present (not to mention law expenses) from Mr.Micawber.' I never can quite understand whether my precocious self-dependence confused Mrs.Micawber in reference to my age, or whether she was so full of the subject that she would have talked about it to the very twins if there had been nobody else to communicate with, but this was the strain in which she began, and she went on accordingly all the time I knew her.
Poor Mrs.Micawber! She said she had tried to exert herself, and so, I have no doubt, she had.

The centre of the street door was perfectly covered with a great brass-plate, on which was engraved 'Mrs.Micawber's Boarding Establishment for Young Ladies': but I never found that any young lady had ever been to school there; or that any young lady ever came, or proposed to come; or that the least preparation was ever made to receive any young lady.