out Agnes and her father. And the
one whom they had most to thank for this was Mr. Micawber.

Heep had met Mr. Micawber once, when the latter, as usual, was in money
difficulties, and, thinking to make a tool of him, had hired him for his
clerk. Little by little Heep had then got the other into his debt, till
Mr. Micawber saw no prospect before him but the debtors' prison.

Threatening him with this, Heep tried to compel him to do various bits
of dirty and dishonest work, at which the other's soul revolted until at
length he made up his mind to expose his employer. So, pretending
obedience, Mr. Micawber wormed himself into all of the sneaking Heep's
affairs, found out the evidence of his guilt, and finally taking all the
books and papers from the office safe, sent for David and his friend
Tommy Traddles and told them all he had discovered. They found it was by
forgery that Heep had got Agnes's father into his power in the first
place, and that among others whom he had robbed was David's aunt, Miss
Betsy Trotwood, whose fortune he had stolen.

David and Tommy Traddles sent for Miss Betsy and for Agnes and her
father, and they faced Uriah all together. He tried to brazen it out,
but when he saw the empty safe he knew that all was known. They told
him the only way he could save himself from prison was by giving back
the business to Agnes's father, just as it had been years before, when
David had lived there, and by restoring to Miss Betsy Trotwood every
cent he had robbed her of. This he did with no very good grace and with
an especial curse for David, whom he seemed to blame for it all.

In reward for Mr. Micawber's good services, Miss Betsy and Agnes's
father paid off all his debts and gave him money enough to take him and
his family to Australia. They sailed in the same vessel that carried Mr.
Peggotty and little Em'ly.

Before it sailed little Em'ly had written a letter to Ham, whose
promised wife she had been before she ran away with Steerforth, begging
his forgiveness, and this letter she had asked David to give him after
they had gone. Accordingly one day he went to Yarmouth to do this.

That night a terrible storm arose. The wind was so strong that it
uprooted trees and threw down chimneys and rolled waves mountain high on
the sand where stood the old deserted house-boat of the Peggottys. Next
morning David was awakened with the news that a Spanish ship had gone
ashore and was fast going to pieces, and he ran