Great Expectations

e robbery. Mrs Joe was prodigiously busy in getting the house ready for the festivities of the day, and Joe had been put upon the kitchen door-step to keep him

s Mrs Joe's Christmas salutation, when

Ah! well!' observed Mrs Joe. `You might ha'

r apron never off, I should have been to hear the Carols,' said Mrs Joe. `I'am rather

Joe darted a look at him, and, when her eyes were withdrawn, secretly crossed his two forefingers, and exhibited them to me, as our token that Mrs Joe was in a

which accounted for the mincemeat not being missed), and the pudding was already on the boil. These extensive arrangements occasioned us to be cut off unceremoniously in

s the wide chimney to replace the old one, and uncovered the little state parlour across the passage, which was never uncovered at any other time, but passed the rest of the year in a cool haze of silver paper, which even extended to the four little white crockery poodles on the mantelshelf, each with a bl

grazed him. On the present festive occasion he emerged from his room, when the blithe bells were going, the picture of misery, in a full suit of Sunday penitentials. As to me, I think my sister must have had some general idea that I was a young offender whom an Accoucheur Policemen had taken up (on my birthday) and delivered over to her, to be dealt with according to the outr

with which my mind dwelt on what my hands had done. Under the weight of my wicked secret, I pondered whether the Church would be powerful enough to shield me from the vengeance of the terrible young man, if I divulged to that establishment. I conceived the idea that the time when the banns were read

-to-do corn-chandler in the nearest town, and drove his own chaise-cart. The dinner hour was half-past one. When Joe and I got home, we found the table laid, and Mrs Joe dressed, a

if you could only give him his head, he would read the clergyman into fits; he himself confessed that if the Church was `thrown open,' meaning to competition, he would not despair of making his mark in it. The Church not being `thrown open,' he was, as I have s

door - and I opened it first to Mr Wopsle, next to Mr and Mrs Hubble, and last of all to

r standing upright on his head, so that he looked as if he had just been all but chocked, and had that moment come to; `I have brought you

ls. Every Christmas Day, Mrs Joe replied, as she now replied, `Oh, Un - cle Pum - ble - chook! This IS kind!' Every Christmas Day, he re

generally more gracious in the society of Mrs Hubble than in other company. I remember Mrs Hubble as a little curly sharp-edged person in sky-blue, who held a conventionally juvenile position, because she had married Mr Hubble - I don't know at what remote period - when s

didn't want to speak), nor because I was regaled with the scaly tips of the drumsticks of the fowls, and with those obscure corners of pork of which the pig, when living, had had the least reason to be vain. No; I should not have minded that, if they would only have left me alone. But

like a religious cross of the Ghost in Hamlet with Richard the Third - and ended with the very proper aspiration that we might be

ook, `be grateful, boy, to the

that the young are never grateful?' This moral mystery seemed too much for the company until Mr Hubble tersely solved it by

e always aided and comforted me when he could, in some way of his own, and he always did so at dinner-time by giving me

being `thrown open' - what king of sermon he would have given them. After favouring them with some heads of that discourse, he remarked that h

upon their tails. That's what's wanted. A man needn't go far to find a subject, if he's ready with his salt-box.' Mr Pumblech

Mr Wopsle; and I knew he was going to lug me in, b

said my sister to me, i

me some m

ine were the companions of the prodigal. The gluttony of Swine is put before us, as an example to the young.' (I thought this pretty w

suggested

ssented Mr Wopsle, rather irritabl

arp on me, `think what you've got to be gr

ild was,' said my sis

me some m

aid Mr Pumblechook. `If you had been born su

' said Mr Wopsle, nod

ing that? No, he wouldn't. And what would have been your destination?' turning on me again. `You would have been disposed of for so many shillings according to the market price of the article, and Dunstable the butcher would have come up to you as you lay in your

e gravy, which I w

o you, ma'am,' said Mrs Hubb

the acts of sleeplessness I had committed, and all the high places I had tumbled from, and all the low places I had tumbled into, a

me, during the recital of my misdemeanours, that I should have liked to pull it until he howled. But, all I had endured up to this time, was nothing in comparison with the awful feelings that to

tly back to the theme from which they had strayed,

brandy, uncle,'

uld say it was weak, and I was lost! I held tight to the leg of

taking any. The wretched man trifled with his glass - took it up, looked at it through the light, put it down

ck, and drink the brandy off. Instantly afterwards, the company were seized with unspeakable consternation, owing to his springing to his feet, turning round several times in an appalling spasmod

rdered him somehow. In my dreadful situation, it was a relief when he was brought back, and, surveying the comp

would be worse by-and-by. I moved the table, like a Medium

n amazement. `Why, how ev

asked for hot gin-and-water. My sister, who had begun to be alarmingly meditative, had to employ herself actively in getting the gin, the hot water, the sugar, a

All partook of pudding. The course terminated, and Mr Pumblechook had begun to beam under the genial influence

bosom as if it had been the companion of my youth and friend of my soul.

th her best grace, `You must taste, to finish with, such a

t them not ho

sister, rising, `it's a

ved well of his fellow-creatures, said - quite vivaciously, all things considered -

k that `a bit of savoury pork pie would lay atop of anything you could mention, and do no harm,' and I heard Joe say, `You shall have some, Pip.' I have never been absolutely certain whether I utter

st into a party of soldiers with their muskets: one of whom held out a