Chapter 27

Great Expectations

by Charles Dickens

"My Dear Mr Pip,

"I write this by request of Mr. Gargery, for to let you know
that he is going to London in company with Mr. Wopsle and would be
glad if agreeable to be allowed to see you. He would call at
Barnard's Hotel Tuesday morning 9 o'clock, when if not agreeable
please leave word. Your poor sister is much the same as when you
left. We talk of you in the kitchen every night, and wonder what you
are saying and doing. If now considered in the light of a liberty,
excuse it for the love of poor old days. No more, dear Mr. Pip,
from

"Your ever obliged, and affectionate servant,

"Biddy."

"P.S. He wishes me most particular to write what larks. He
says you will understand. I hope and do not doubt it will be
agreeable to see him even though a gentleman, for you had ever a good
heart, and he is a worthy worthy man. I have read him all excepting
only the last little sentence, and he wishes me most particular to
write again what larks."

I received this letter by the post on Monday morning, and
therefore its appointment was for next day. Let me confess exactly,
with what feelings I looked forward to Joe's coming.

Not with pleasure, though I was bound to him by so many ties;
no; with considerable disturbance, some mortification, and a keen
sense of incongruity. If I could have kept him away by paying money,
I certainly would have paid money. My greatest reassurance was, that
he was coming to Barnard's Inn, not to Hammersmith, and consequently
would not fall in Bentley Drummle's way. I had little objection to
his being seen by Herbert or his father, for both of whom I had a
respect; but I had the sharpest sensitiveness as to his being seen by
Drummle, whom I held in contempt. So, throughout life, our worst
weaknesses and meannesses are usually committed for the sake of the
people whom we most despise.

I had begun to be always decorating the chambers in some quite
unnecessary and inappropriate way or other, and very expensive those
wrestles with Barnard proved to be. By this time, the rooms were
vastly different from what I had found them, and I enjoyed the honour
of occupying a few prominent pages in the books of a neighbouring
upholsterer. I had got on so fast of late, that I had even started a
boy in boots - top boots - in bondage and slavery to whom I might
have been said to pass my days. For, after I had made the monster
(out of the refuse of my washerwoman's family) and had clothed him
with a blue coat, canary waistcoat, white cravat, creamy breeches,
and the boots already mentioned, I had to find him a little to do and
a great deal to eat; and with both of those horrible requirements he
haunted my existence.

This avenging phantom was ordered to be on duty at eight on
Tuesday morning in the hall (it was two feet square, as charged for
floorcloth), and Herbert suggested certain things for breakfast that
he thought Joe would like. While I felt sincerely obliged to him for
being so interested and considerate, I had an odd half-provoked sense
of suspicion upon me, that if Joe had been coming to see him, he
wouldn't have been quite so brisk about it.

However, I came into town on the Monday night to be ready for
Joe, and I got up early in the morning, and caused the sittingroom
and breakfast-table to assume their most splendid appearance.
Unfortunately the morning was drizzly, and an angel could not have
concealed the fact that Barnard was shedding sooty tears outside the
window, like some weak giant of a Sweep.

As the time approached I should have liked to run away, but the
Avenger pursuant to orders was in the hall, and presently I heard Joe
on the staircase. I knew it was Joe, by his clumsy manner of coming
up-stairs - his state boots being always too big for him - and by the
time it took him to read the names on the other floors in the course
of his ascent. When at last he stopped outside our door, I could
hear his finger tracing over the painted letters of my name, and I
afterwards distinctly heard him breathing in at the keyhole. Finally
he gave a faint single rap, and Pepper - such was the compromising
name of the avenging boy - announced "Mr. Gargery!" I thought he
never would have done wiping his feet, and that I must have gone out
to lift him off the mat, but at last he came in.

"Joe, how are you, Joe?"

"Pip, how air you, Pip?"

With his good honest face all glowing and shining, and his hat
put down on the floor between us, he caught both my hands and worked
them straight up and down, as if I had been the lastpatented Pump.

"I am glad to see you, Joe. Give me your hat."

But Joe, taking it up carefully with both hands, like a
bird's-nest with eggs in it, wouldn't hear of parting with that piece
of property, and persisted in standing talking over it in a most
uncomfortable way.

"Which you have that growed," said Joe, "and that swelled, and
that gentle-folked;" Joe considered a little before he discovered
this word; "as to be sure you are a honour to your king and
country."

"And you, Joe, look wonderfully well."

"Thank God," said Joe, "I'm ekerval to most. And your sister,
she's no worse than she were. And Biddy, she's ever right and ready.
And all friends is no backerder, if not no forarder. 'Ceptin
Wopsle; he's had a drop."

All this time (still with both hands taking great care of the
bird's-nest), Joe was rolling his eyes round and round the room, and
round and round the flowered pattern of my dressing-gown.

"Had a drop, Joe?"

"Why yes," said Joe, lowering his voice, "he's left the Church,
and went into the playacting. Which the playacting have likeways
brought him to London along with me. And his wish were," said Joe,
getting the bird's-nest under his left arm for the moment and groping
in it for an egg with his right; "if no offence, as I would 'and you
that."

I took what Joe gave me, and found it to be the crumpled
playbill of a small metropolitan theatre, announcing the first
appearance, in that very week, of "the celebrated Provincial Amateur
of Roscian renown, whose unique performance in the highest tragic
walk of our National Bard has lately occasioned so great a sensation
in local dramatic circles."

"Were you at his performance, Joe?" I inquired.

"I were," said Joe, with emphasis and solemnity.

"Was there a great sensation?"

"Why," said Joe, "yes, there certainly were a peck of
orange-peel. Partickler, when he see the ghost. Though I put it to
yourself, sir, whether it were calc'lated to keep a man up to his
work with a good hart, to be continiwally cutting in betwixt him and
the Ghost with "Amen!" A man may have had a misfortun' and been in
the Church," said Joe, lowering his voice to an argumentative and
feeling tone, "but that is no reason why you should put him out at
such a time. Which I meantersay, if the ghost of a man's own father
cannot be allowed to claim his attention, what can, Sir? Still more,
when his mourning "at is unfortunately made so small as that the
weight of the black feathers brings it off, try to keep it on how you
may."

A ghost-seeing effect in Joe's own countenance informed me that
Herbert had entered the room. So, I presented Joe to Herbert, who
held out his hand; but Joe backed from it, and held on by the
bird's-nest.

"Your servant, Sir," said Joe, "which I hope as you and Pip" -
here his eye fell on the Avenger, who was putting some toast on
table, and so plainly denoted an intention to make that young
gentleman one of the family, that I frowned it down and confused him
more - "I meantersay, you two gentlemen - which I hope as you get
your elths in this close spot? For the present may be a werry good
inn, according to London opinions," said Joe, confidentially, "and I
believe its character do stand i; but I wouldn't keep a pig in it
myself - not in the case that I wished him to fatten wholesome and to
eat with a meller flavour on him."

Having borne this flattering testimony to the merits of our
dwelling-place, and having incidentally shown this tendency to call
me "sir," Joe, being invited to sit down to table, looked all round
the room for a suitable spot on which to deposit his hat - as if it
were only on some very few rare substances in nature that it could
find a resting place - and ultimately stood it on an extreme corner
of the chimney-piece, from which it ever afterwards fell off at
intervals.

"Do you take tea, or coffee, Mr. Gargery?" asked Herbert, who
always presided of a morning.

"Thankee, Sir," said Joe, stiff from head to foot, "I'll take
whichever is most agreeable to yourself."

"What do you say to coffee?"

"Thankee, Sir," returned Joe, evidently dispirited by the
proposal, "since you are so kind as make chice of coffee, I will not
run contrairy to your own opinions. But don't you never find it a
little 'eating?"

"Say tea then," said Herbert, pouring it out.

Here Joe's hat tumbled off the mantel-piece, and he started out
of his chair and picked it up, and fitted it to the same exact spot.
As if it were an absolute point of good breeding that it should
tumble off again soon.

"When did you come to town, Mr. Gargery?"

"Were it yesterday afternoon?" said Joe, after coughing behind
his hand, as if he had had time to catch the whooping-cough since he
came. "No it were not. Yes it were. Yes. It were yesterday
afternoon" (with an appearance of mingled wisdom, relief, and strict
impartiality).

"Have you seen anything of London, yet?"

"Why, yes, Sir," said Joe, "me and Wopsle went off straight to
look at the Blacking Ware'us. But we didn't find that it come up to
its likeness in the red bills at the shop doors; which I meantersay,"
added Joe, in an explanatory manner, "as it is there drawd too
architectooralooral."

I really believe Joe would have prolonged this word (mightily
expressive to my mind of some architecture that I know) into a
perfect Chorus, but for his attention being providentially attracted
by his hat, which was toppling. Indeed, it demanded from him a
constant attention, and a quickness of eye and hand, very like that
exacted by wicket-keeping. He made extraordinary play with it, and
showed the greatest skill; now, rushing at it and catching it neatly
as it dropped; now, merely stopping it midway, beating it up, and
humouring it in various parts of the room and against a good deal of
the pattern of the paper on the wall, before he felt it safe to close
with it; finally, splashing it into the slop-basin, where I took the
liberty of laying hands upon it.

As to his shirt-collar, and his coat-collar, they were
perplexing to reflect upon - insoluble mysteries both. Why should a
man scrape himself to that extent, before he could consider himself
full dressed? Why should he suppose it necessary to be purified by
suffering for his holiday clothes? Then he fell into such
unaccountable fits of meditation, with his fork midway between his
plate and his mouth; had his eyes attracted in such strange
directions; was afflicted with such remarkable coughs; sat so far
from the table, and dropped so much more than he ate, and pretended
that he hadn't dropped it; that I was heartily glad when Herbert left
us for the city.

I had neither the good sense nor the good feeling to know that
this was all my fault, and that if I had been easier with Joe, Joe
would have been easier with me. I felt impatient of him and out of
temper with him; in which condition he heaped coals of fire on my
head.

"Us two being now alone, Sir," - began Joe.

"Joe," I interrupted, pettishly, "how can you call me, Sir?"

Joe looked at me for a single instant with something faintly
like reproach. Utterly preposterous as his cravat was, and as his
collars were, I was conscious of a sort of dignity in the look.

"Us two being now alone," resumed Joe, "and me having the
intentions and abilities to stay not many minutes more, I will now
conclude - leastways begin - to mention what have led to my having
had the present honour. For was it not," said Joe, with his old air
of lucid exposition, "that my only wish were to be useful to you, I
should not have had the honour of breaking wittles in the company and
abode of gentlemen."

I was so unwilling to see the look again, that I made no
remonstrance against this tone.

"Well, Sir," pursued Joe, "this is how it were. I were at the
Bargemen t'other night, Pip;" whenever he subsided into affection, he
called me Pip, and whenever he relapsed into politeness he called me
Sir; "when there come up in his shay-cart, Pumblechook. Which that
same identical," said Joe, going down a new track, "do comb my 'air
the wrong way sometimes, awful, by giving out up and down town as it
were him which ever had your infant companionation and were looked
upon as a playfellow by yourself."

"Nonsense. It was you, Joe."

"Which I fully believed it were, Pip," said Joe, slightly
tossing his head, "though it signify little now, Sir. Well, Pip;
this same identical, which his manners is given to blusterous, come
to me at the Bargemen (wot a pipe and a pint of beer do give
refreshment to the working-man, Sir, and do not over stimilate), and
his word were, 'Joseph, Miss Havisham she wish to speak to you.'"

"Miss Havisham, Joe?"

"'She wish,' were Pumblechook's word, 'to speak to you.'" Joe
sat and rolled his eyes at the ceiling.

"Yes, Joe? Go on, please."

"Next day, Sir," said Joe, looking at me as if I were a long way
off, "having cleaned myself, I go and I see Miss A."

"Miss A., Joe? Miss Havisham?"

"Which I say, Sir," replied Joe, with an air of legal formality,
as if he were making his will, "Miss A., or otherways Havisham. Her
expression air then as follering: 'Mr. Gargery. You air in
correspondence with Mr. Pip?' Having had a letter from you, I were
able to say 'I am.' (When I married your sister, Sir, I said 'I
will;' and when I answered your friend, Pip, I said 'I am.') 'Would
you tell him, then,' said she, 'that which Estella has come home and
would be glad to see him.'"

I felt my face fire up as I looked at Joe. I hope one remote
cause of its firing, may have been my consciousness that if I had
known his errand, I should have given him more encouragement.

"Biddy," pursued Joe, "when I got home and asked her fur to
write the message to you, a little hung back. Biddy says, "I know he
will be very glad to have it by word of mouth, it is holidaytime, you
want to see him, go!" I have now concluded, Sir," said Joe, rising
from his chair, "and, Pip, I wish you ever well and ever prospering
to a greater and a greater heighth."

"But you are not going now, Joe?"

"Yes I am," said Joe.

"But you are coming back to dinner, Joe?"

"No I am not," said Joe.

Our eyes met, and all the "Sir" melted out of that manly heart
as he gave me his hand.

"Pip, dear old chap, life is made of ever so many partings
welded together, as I may say, and one man's a blacksmith, and one's
a whitesmith, and one's a goldsmith, and one's a coppersmith.
Diwisions among such must come, and must be met as they come. If
there's been any fault at all to-day, it's mine. You and me is not
two figures to be together in London; nor yet anywheres else but what
is private, and beknown, and understood among friends. It ain't that
I am proud, but that I want to be right, as you shall never see me no
more in these clothes. I'm wrong in these clothes. I'm wrong out of
the forge, the kitchen, or off th' meshes. You won't find half so
much fault in me if you think of me in my forge dress, with my hammer
in my hand, or even my pipe. You won't find half so much fault in me
if, supposing as you should ever wish to see me, you come and put
your head in at the forge window and see Joe the blacksmith, there,
at the old anvil, in the old burnt apron, sticking to the old work.
I'm awful dull, but I hope I've beat out something nigh the rights of
this at last. And so God bless you, dear old Pip, old chap, God
bless you!"

I had not been mistaken in my fancy that there was a simple
dignity in him. The fashion of his dress could no more come in its
way when he spoke these words, than it could come in its way in
Heaven. He touched me gently on the forehead, and went out. As soon
as I could recover myself sufficiently, I hurried out after him and
looked for him in the neighbouring streets; but he was gone.