Great Expectations

f this luminous conception I mentioned to Biddy when I went to Mr Wopsle's great-aunt's at night, that I had a particular reason for wishing to get on in life, and that I should feel very much

of ascertaining who could tread the hardest upon whose toes. This mental exercise lasted until Biddy made a rush at them and distributed three defaced Bibles (shaped as if they had been unskilfully cut off the chump-end of something), more illegibly printed at the best than any curiosities of literature I have since met with, speckled all over with ironmould, and having various specimens of the insect world smashed between their leaves. This part of the Course was usually lightened by several single combats between Biddy and refractory students. When the fights were over, Biddy gave out the number of a page, and then we all read aloud what we could - or what we couldn't - in a frightful chorus; Biddy leading with a high shrill monotonous voice, and none of us having the least notion of,

on our special agreement, by imparting some information from her little catalogue of Prices, under the head of moist sugar, and lending me, to copy at home, a

I had received strict orders from my sister to call for him at the Three Jolly Bargemen, that evening, on my

hich seemed to me to be never paid off. They had been there ever since I could remember, and had grown more than I had. Bu

evening, and passed into the common room at the end of the passage, where there was a bright large kitchen fire, and where Joe was smoking his pipe in company

ng aim at something with an invisible gun. He had a pipe in his mouth, and he took it out, and, after slowly blowing all his smoke away and look

e space Joe made for me on the opposite settle. The strange man, after glancing at Joe, and seeing that his attention was o

trange man, turning to Joe,

it, you kno

- ? You didn't mention

called him by it. `What'll you drink, Mr

uth, I ain't much in the habit of dri

once and away, and on a Saturday night

o be stiff company

r. `And will the other gent

said Mr

tranger, calling to the l

ntroducing Mr Wopsle, `is a gentleman that you wo

ing his eye at me. `The lonely church, righ

it,' s

a flapping broad-brimmed traveller's hat, and under it a handkerchief tied over his head in the manner of a cap: so that he

ntry, gentlemen, but it seems a so

s is solitar

any gipsies, now, or tramps, or

y convict now and then. And we don

emembrance of old discomfitu

n out after such?'

ke them, you understand; we went out as lookers

s,

ere expressly taking aim at me with his invisible gun - and said, `

' sai

stene

christe

name

family name what he gave himself

of yo

to consider about it, but because it was the way at the Jolly Bargemen to seem to con

aid the st

of profound cogitation, `he is not - no,

he stranger. Which appeared to me to

s a man might not marry; and expounded the ties between me and Joe. Having his hand in, Mr Wopsle finished off with a most terrifically sn

e why everybody of his standing who visited at our house should always have put me through the same inflammatory process under similar circumstances. Yet I do not call to

shot at me at last, and bring me down. But he said nothing after offering his Blue Blazes observation, unti

He stirred his rum-and-water pointedly at me, and he tasted his rum-and-water pointedly at me.

I knew it to be Joe's file, and I knew that he knew my convict, the moment I saw the instrument. I sat gazing at him,

lage on Saturday nights, which stimulated Joe to dare to stay out half an hour longer on Saturdays than at oth

an. `I think I've got a bright new shilling somewher

ge, folded it in some crumpled paper, and gav

Joe good-night, and he gave Mr Wopsle good-night (who went out with us), and he gave me only a look wit

e door of the Jolly Bargemen, and Joe went all the way home with his mouth wide open, to rinse the rum out with as much air as pos

ncouraged by that unusual circumstance to tell her about the bright shilling. `A bad un, I'll be

ne. `But what's this?' said Mrs Joe, throwing down the s

e markets in the county. Joe caught up his hat again, and ran with them to the Jolly Bargemen to restore them to their owner. Whi

ing the notes. Then my sister sealed them up in a piece of paper, and put them under some dried rose-leaves in an ornamenta

s of conspiracy with convicts - a feature in my low career that I had previously forgotten. I was haunted by the file too. A dread possessed me that when I least expected it, the file would rea