“When the worst comes to the worst, no man is without a friend who is possessed of shaving materials”

The expression “When the worst comes to the worst, no man is without a friend who is possessed of shaving materials” is Mr. Micawber’s wry formulation of friendship under pressure. Spoken while he and Mrs. Micawber are stranded in Canterbury awaiting a remittance, it converts a real financial crisis into a joke whose grand phrasing and humble object sit deliberately at odds.

The Circumstance of the Saying

The Micawbers have been in Canterbury for three days, and their expected money from London has not arrived. Mrs. Micawber explains that they cannot yet discharge their obligations at the hotel and are cut off from their home and children. When David Copperfield expresses sympathy and wishes he had enough money to lend them, Mr. Micawber shakes his hand and answers with the maxim. Its occasion makes the reference to a friend’s shaving materials pointed: David has just offered the help he cannot afford to give.

Comic Indirection

Rather than plainly ask for money, Mr. Micawber casts the difficulty as a universal observation about how a friend can help when circumstances reach their worst. The modest practicality of shaving materials is incongruously small beside the Micawbers’ unpaid hotel bill, while the polished, absolute form of the saying gives the reply the air of a proverb. The contrast lets embarrassment surface through comedy without erasing the seriousness of their need.

The Scene’s Reversal of Tone

David regards the hint as dreadful, and Mrs. Micawber throws her arms around her husband’s neck and entreats him to be calm. Mr. Micawber weeps, but almost immediately recovers enough to ring for the waiter and order a hot kidney pudding and shrimps for breakfast. The movement from financial anxiety to theatrical emotion and then to an appetite for breakfast makes the saying part of the scene’s broader comic rhythm: distress is real, yet Mr. Micawber’s manner turns it into performance. The expression joins friendship to need while leaving the request indirect, so that its humor depends on the gap between the small resource named and the larger assistance the moment appears to call for.