'Is he as soft as ever?
And where the deuce did you pick him up ?' I extolled Traddles in reply, as highly as I could; for I felt that Steerforth rather slighted him.

Steerforth, dismissing the subject with a light nod, and a smile, and the remark that he would be glad to see the old fellow too, for he had always been an odd fish, inquired if I could give him anything to eat?
During most of this short dialogue, when he had not been speaking in a wild vivacious manner, he had sat idly beating on the lump of coal with the poker.

I observed that he did the same thing while I was getting out the remains of the pigeon-pie, and so forth.
'Why, Daisy, here's a supper for a king!' he exclaimed, starting out of his silence with a burst, and taking his seat at the table.

'I shall do it justice, for I have come from Yarmouth.' 'I thought you came from Oxford ?' I returned.
'Not I,' said Steerforth.

'I have been seafaring--better employed.' 'Littimer was here today, to inquire for you,' I remarked, 'and I understood him that you were at Oxford; though, now I think of it, he certainly did not say so.' 'Littimer is a greater fool than I thought him, to have been inquiring for me at all,' said Steerforth, jovially pouring out a glass of wine, and drinking to me.