Mi ‧ caw ‧ ber, Mr /mɪˈkɔːbəʳ/ BrE AmE
a character in the book David Copperfield (1849–50) by Charles ↑ dickens , who is believed to be based on Dickens’s own father. He is put in prison because he owes money and cannot pay it, but he is always happy and spends any money he gets on himself, confident that ‘something will turn up’ to end his problems. He is also remembered for saying, ‘Annual income twenty pounds, annual expenditure nineteen pounds, nineteen and six, result happiness. Annual income twenty pounds, annual expenditure twenty pounds ought and six, result misery.’ By this he meant that if you spend slightly less than you earn you will be happy, but if you spend slightly more than you earn you will be unhappy.