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1The felicitous idea occurred to me a morning or two later when I woke, that the best step I could take towards making
2myself uncommon was to get out of Biddy everything she knew. In pursuance of this luminous conception I mentioned to
3Biddy 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,
4and that I should feel very much obliged to her if she would impart all her learning to me. Biddy, who was the most
5obliging of girls, immediately said she would, and indeed began to carry out her promise within five minutes. The
6Educational scheme or Course established by Mr. Wopsle's great-aunt may be resolved into the following synopsis. The
7pupils ate apples and put straws down one another's backs, until Mr. Wopsle's great-aunt collected her energies, and
8made an indiscriminate totter at them with a birch-rod. After receiving the charge with every mark of derision, the
9pupils formed in line and buzzingly passed a ragged book from hand to hand. The book had an alphabet in it, some figures
10and tables, and a little spelling,--that is to say, it had had once. As soon as this volume began to circulate, Mr.
11Wopsle's great-aunt fell into a state of coma, arising either from sleep or a rheumatic paroxysm. The pupils then
12entered among themselves upon a competitive examination on the subject of Boots, with the view of ascertaining who could
13tread the hardest upon whose toes. This mental exercise lasted until Biddy made a rush at them and distributed three
14defaced Bibles (shaped as if they had been unskilfully cut off the chump end of something), more illegibly printed at
15the best than any curiosities of literature I have since met with, speckled all over with ironmould, and having various
16specimens of the insect world smashed between their leaves. This part of the Course was usually lightened by several
17single combats between Biddy and refractory students. When the fights were over, Biddy gave out the number of a page,
18and then we all read aloud what we could,--or what we couldn't--in a frightful chorus; Biddy leading with a high,
19shrill, monotonous voice, and none of us having the least notion of, or reverence for, what we were reading about. When
20this horrible din had lasted a certain time, it mechanically awoke Mr. Wopsle's great-aunt, who staggered at a boy
21fortuitously, and pulled his ears. This was understood to terminate the Course for the evening, and we emerged into the
22air with shrieks of intellectual victory. It is fair to remark that there was no prohibition against any pupil's
23entertaining himself with a slate or even with the ink (when there was any), but that it was not easy to pursue that
24branch of study in the winter season, on account of the little general shop in which the classes were holden--and which
25was also Mr. Wopsle's great-aunt's sitting-room and bedchamber--being but faintly illuminated through the agency of one
26low-spirited dip-candle and no snuffers. It appeared to me that it would take time to become uncommon, under these
27circumstances: nevertheless, I resolved to try it, and that very evening Biddy entered on our special agreement, by
28imparting some information from her little catalogue of Prices, under the head of moist sugar, and lending me, to copy
29at home, a large old English D which she had imitated from the heading of some newspaper, and which I supposed, until
30she told me what it was, to be a design for a buckle. Of course there was a public-house in the village, and of course
31Joe liked sometimes to smoke his pipe there. I had received strict orders from my sister to call for him at the Three
32Jolly Bargemen, that evening, on my way from school, and bring him home at my peril. To the Three Jolly Bargemen,
33therefore, I directed my steps. There was a bar at the Jolly Bargemen, with some alarmingly long chalk scores in it on
34the wall at the side of the door, which seemed to me to be never paid off. They had been there ever since I could
35remember, and had grown more than I had. But there was a quantity of chalk about our country, and perhaps the people
36neglected no opportunity of turning it to account. It being Saturday night, I found the landlord looking rather grimly
37at these records; but as my business was with Joe and not with him, I merely wished him good evening, and passed into
38the common room at the end of the passage, where there was a bright large kitchen fire, and where Joe was smoking his
39pipe in company with Mr. Wopsle and a stranger. Joe greeted me as usual with "Halloa, Pip, old chap!" and the moment he
40said that, the stranger turned his head and looked at me. He was a secret-looking man whom I had never seen before. His
41head was all on one side, and one of his eyes was half shut up, as if he were taking aim at something with an invisible
42gun. He had a pipe in his mouth, and he took it out, and, after slowly blowing all his smoke away and looking hard at me
43all the time, nodded. So, I nodded, and then he nodded again, and made room on the settle beside him that I might sit
44down there. But as I was used to sit beside Joe whenever I entered that place of resort, I said "No, thank you, sir,"
45and fell into the space Joe made for me on the opposite settle. The strange man, after glancing at Joe, and seeing that
46his attention was otherwise engaged, nodded to me again when I had taken my seat, and then rubbed his leg--in a very odd
47way, as it struck me. "You was saying," said the strange man, turning to Joe, "that you was a blacksmith." "Yes. I said
48it, you know," said Joe. "What'll you drink, Mr.--? You didn't mention your name, by the bye." Joe mentioned it now, and
49the strange man called him by it. "What'll you drink, Mr. Gargery? At my expense? To top up with?" "Well," said Joe, "to
50tell you the truth, I ain't much in the habit of drinking at anybody's expense but my own." "Habit? No," returned the
51stranger, "but once and away, and on a Saturday night too. Come! Put a name to it, Mr. Gargery." "I wouldn't wish to be
52stiff company," said Joe. "Rum." "Rum," repeated the stranger. "And will the other gentleman originate a sentiment."
53"Rum," said Mr. Wopsle. "Three Rums!" cried the stranger, calling to the landlord. "Glasses round!" "This other
54gentleman," observed Joe, by way of introducing Mr. Wopsle, "is a gentleman that you would like to hear give it out. Our
55clerk at church." "Aha!" said the stranger, quickly, and cocking his eye at me. "The lonely church, right out on the
56marshes, with graves round it!" "That's it," said Joe. The stranger, with a comfortable kind of grunt over his pipe, put
57his legs up on the settle that he had to himself. He wore a flapping broad-brimmed traveller's hat, and under it a
58handkerchief tied over his head in the manner of a cap: so that he showed no hair. As he looked at the fire, I thought I
59saw a cunning expression, followed by a half-laugh, come into his face. "I am not acquainted with this country,
60gentlemen, but it seems a solitary country towards the river." "Most marshes is solitary," said Joe. "No doubt, no
61doubt. Do you find any gypsies, now, or tramps, or vagrants of any sort, out there?" "No," said Joe; "none but a runaway
62convict now and then. And we don't find them, easy. Eh, Mr. Wopsle?" Mr. Wopsle, with a majestic remembrance of old
63discomfiture, assented; but not warmly. "Seems you have been out after such?" asked the stranger. "Once," returned Joe.
64"Not that we wanted to take them, you understand; we went out as lookers on; me, and Mr. Wopsle, and Pip. Didn't us,
65Pip?" "Yes, Joe." The stranger looked at me again,--still cocking his eye, as if he were expressly taking aim at me with
66his invisible gun,--and said, "He's a likely young parcel of bones that. What is it you call him?" "Pip," said Joe.
67"Christened Pip?" "No, not christened Pip." "Surname Pip?" "No," said Joe, "it's a kind of family name what he gave
68himself when a infant, and is called by." "Son of yours?" "Well," said Joe, meditatively, not, of course, that it could
69be in anywise necessary to consider about it, but because it was the way at the Jolly Bargemen to seem to consider
70deeply about everything that was discussed over pipes,--"well--no. No, he ain't." "Nevvy?" said the strange man.
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