I was standing close to him, looking at him; and still, with a heavy brow, he was lost in his meditations.
He gave such a start when I put my hand upon his shoulder, that he made me start too.
'You come upon me,' he said, almost angrily, 'like a reproachful ghost!' 'I was obliged to announce myself, somehow,' I replied.

'Have I called you down from the stars ?' 'No,' he answered.

'No.' 'Up from anywhere, then ?' said I, taking my seat near him.
'I was looking at the pictures in the fire,' he returned.
'But you are spoiling them for me,' said I, as he stirred it quickly with a piece of burning wood, striking out of it a train of red-hot sparks that went careering up the little chimney, and roaring out into the air.
'You would not have seen them,' he returned.

'I detest this mongrel time, neither day nor night.

How late you are! Where have you been ?' 'I have been taking leave of my usual walk,' said I.
'And I have been sitting here,' said Steerforth, glancing round the room, 'thinking that all the people we found so glad on the night of our coming down, might--to judge from the present wasted air of the place--be dispersed, or dead, or come to I don't know what harm.