Mr. Micawber eventually gets his debts settled and is due to be released from prison.
While sharing a meal with Mrs. Micawber, on the eve of Mr. Micawber’s release, David rushes off to fetch Mr. Micawber when Mrs. Micawber goes into hysterics at the suggestion she might abandon Mr. Micawber. Mr. Micawber hurries to assuage his wife, and at the sight of their devotion to one another, David himself is reduced to tears. David parts from the Micawbers with the ironic sense that they’re not as half as happy as when they were steeped in financial difficulties. As for David himself, he feels the prospects of parting with the Micawbers, who have been his only friends in London and who will move en masse to Plymouth upon Mr. Micawber’s release, unendurable.
The fact that David will part ways with Micawbers becomes official the next day when Mr. Micawber, now released from debtor’s prison, informs Mr. Quinion that someone else will have to see to David’s lodgings. Subsequently, David treasures the last few days that he and the Micawbers share a common roof in London. As parting gifts, David bestows a spotted wooden horse and doll for the Macawber toddlers Wilkins and Emma; he even has a gift (a shilling) for Orfling, the Micawbers' servant, from whom the Micawbers will also part ways. Eventually, the day of the parting arrives. Mrs. Micawber hugs David as if she were his mother, and the coach conveying the Micawbers to Plymouth rumbles away.
Subsequent to the Micawbers’ departure, David makes preparations to leave London as well. He has decided to go to his great-aunt, Miss Betsey. David is encouraged in the wisdom of this decision by the memory of his mother’s account of Miss Betsey’s visit during which Miss Betsey had acknowledged the prettiness of David’s mother. David writes a letter to Peggotty to confirm that Miss Betsey does indeed live in Dover and to ask for a loan of half a guinea. Upon confirmation of Miss Betsey’s location and upon receipt of the loan, David finishes his weekly workload at Murdstone & Grinby and extends the company the courtesy of not picking up his pay as the company had forwarded an advance during David’s first week of work.
Presently, outside his current lodgings, which he is to vacate forever, David spots a long-legged man with an empty donkey-cart. David employs this man to have his luggage conveyed to Dover. But before the commission is executed, David asks the man to meet him at the debtor’s prison. The reason for this is that David wants to put a written notice on his luggage stating that it is to be stored in the Dover depot until such time David is disposed to pick it up. And he doesn’t want his landlord, who is unaware of David’s plan to fly the coop and who would waylay David should he find out David is flying the coop, to see the written notice and put one and one together.
At the debtor’s prison, in the act of fishing out the written notice from his pocket, David accidently drops his half a guinea. Suddenly the long-legged man pockets David’s half guinea, accuses David of making a run from the law, and asserting that he is going straight to the police to inform them of David’s fugitive status, rides away in his cart. David tries to catch the man to no avail. At length, resigned to the fact that his money and luggage are irrevocably lost, David heads toward to Miss Betsey’s by way of Dover Road.