e
relative, Aunt Betsey, who had been present at the time of my birth,
confident in her hopes of a niece who should be named for her, Betsey
Trotwood, and for whom she proposed to provide liberally. When I, David
Copperfield, came in place of the longed-for niece, Aunt Betsey shook the
dust of the place off her feet, and my mother never saw her afterwards. My
idea now was to find Aunt Betsey. Not knowing where she lived, I wrote a
long letter to Peggotty, and asked in it incidentally if she knew the
address, and also if she could lend me half a guinea for a short time. She
answered promptly and enclosed the half guinea, saying that Miss Betsey
lived just outside of Dover, which place I at once resolved to set out
for. However, I considered myself bound to remain at the warehouse until
Saturday night; and as when I first came there I had been paid for a week
in advance, not to present myself as usual to receive my wages. For this
reason I had borrowed the half guinea, that I might have a fund for my
travelling expenses.

Accordingly, when Saturday night came, I shook Mick Walker's hand, bade
good-night to Mealy Potatoes--and ran away.

My box was at my old lodging, and I had a card ready for it, addressed to
"Master David, to be left till called for at the Coach Office, Dover."

I found a young man with a donkey-cart whom I engaged for sixpence, to
remove my box, and in pulling the card for it out of my pocket, I tumbled
my half guinea out too. I put it in my mouth for safety, and had just tied
the card on, when I felt myself violently chucked under the chin by the
young man, and saw my half guinea fly out of my mouth into his hand.

"You give me my money back, if you please," said I, very much frightened.
"And leave me alone!"

"Come to the pollis," said he; "you shall prove it yourn to the pollis!"

"Give me my box and money, will you?" I cried, bursting into tears.

The young man still replied, "Come to the pollis!"

Then suddenly changed his mind, jumped into the cart, sat upon my box, and
exclaiming that he would drive to the pollis straight, rattled away.

I ran after him as fast as I could, narrowly escaping being run over some
twenty times in a mile, until I had no breath left to call out with. Now I
lost him, now I saw him, but at length, confused and exhausted, I left him
to go where he would with my box and money, and, panting and crying, but
never stopping, I faced about for Greenwich, and had some wi