He was as good as his word, if that were all right which I had a secret misgiving was nearly all wrong--for I feared it was a waste of my mother's two half-crowns--though I had preserved the piece of paper they were wrapped in: which was a precious saving.

When we went upstairs to bed, he produced the whole seven shillings' worth, and laid it out on my bed in the moonlight, saying: 'There you are, young Copperfield, and a royal spread you've got.' I couldn't think of doing the honours of the feast, at my time of life, while he was by; my hand shook at the very thought of it.

I begged him to do me the favour of presiding; and my request being seconded by the other boys who were in that room, he acceded to it, and sat upon my pillow, handing round the viands--with perfect fairness, I must say--and dispensing the currant wine in a little glass without a foot, which was his own property.

As to me, I sat on his left hand, and the rest were grouped about us, on the nearest beds and on the floor.
How well I recollect our sitting there, talking in whispers; or their talking, and my respectfully listening, I ought rather to say; the moonlight falling a little way into the room, through the window, painting a pale window on the floor, and the greater part of us in shadow, except when Steerforth dipped a match into a phosphorus-box, when he wanted to look for anything on the board, and shed a blue glare over us that was gone directly! A certain mysterious feeling, consequent on the darkness, the secrecy of the revel, and the whisper in which everything was said, steals over me again, and I listen to all they tell me with a vague feeling of solemnity and awe, which makes me glad that they are all so near, and frightens me (though I feign to laugh) when Traddles pretends to see a ghost in the corner.
I heard all kinds of things about the school and all belonging to it.
I heard that Mr.Creakle had not preferred his claim to being a Tartar without reason; that he was the sternest and most severe of masters; that he laid about him, right and left, every day of his life, charging in among the boys like a trooper, and slashing away, unmercifully.

That he knew nothing himself, but the art of slashing, being more ignorant (J.Steerforth said) than the lowest boy in the school; that he had been, a good many years ago, a small hop-dealer in the Borough, and had taken to the schooling business after being bankrupt in hops, and making away with Mrs.Creakle's money.