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1It had not occurred to me before, that he had led up to the theme for the purpose of clearing it out of our way; but we
2were so much the lighter and easier for having broached it, that I now perceived this to be the case. We were very gay
3and sociable, and I asked him, in the course of conversation, what he was? He replied, "A capitalist,--an Insurer of
4Ships." I suppose he saw me glancing about the room in search of some tokens of Shipping, or capital, for he added, "In
5the City." I had grand ideas of the wealth and importance of Insurers of Ships in the City, and I began to think with
6awe of having laid a young Insurer on his back, blackened his enterprising eye, and cut his responsible head open. But
7again there came upon me, for my relief, that odd impression that Herbert Pocket would never be very successful or rich.
8"I shall not rest satisfied with merely employing my capital in insuring ships. I shall buy up some good Life Assurance
9shares, and cut into the Direction. I shall also do a little in the mining way. None of these things will interfere with
10my chartering a few thousand tons on my own account. I think I shall trade," said he, leaning back in his chair, "to the
11East Indies, for silks, shawls, spices, dyes, drugs, and precious woods. It's an interesting trade." "And the profits
12are large?" said I. "Tremendous!" said he. I wavered again, and began to think here were greater expectations than my
13own. [Illustration] "I think I shall trade, also," said he, putting his thumbs in his waist-coat pockets, "to the West
14Indies, for sugar, tobacco, and rum. Also to Ceylon, especially for elephants' tusks." "You will want a good many
15ships," said I. "A perfect fleet," said he. Quite overpowered by the magnificence of these transactions, I asked him
16where the ships he insured mostly traded to at present? "I haven't begun insuring yet," he replied. "I am looking about
17me." Somehow, that pursuit seemed more in keeping with Barnard's Inn. I said (in a tone of conviction), "Ah-h!" "Yes. I
18am in a counting-house, and looking about me." "Is a counting-house profitable?" I asked. "To--do you mean to the young
19fellow who's in it?" he asked, in reply. "Yes; to you." "Why, n-no; not to me." He said this with the air of one
20carefully reckoning up and striking a balance. "Not directly profitable. That is, it doesn't pay me anything, and I have
21to--keep myself." This certainly had not a profitable appearance, and I shook my head as if I would imply that it would
22be difficult to lay by much accumulative capital from such a source of income. "But the thing is," said Herbert Pocket,
23"that you look about you. That's the grand thing. You are in a counting-house, you know, and you look about you." It
24struck me as a singular implication that you couldn't be out of a counting-house, you know, and look about you; but I
25silently deferred to his experience. "Then the time comes," said Herbert, "when you see your opening. And you go in, and
26you swoop upon it and you make your capital, and then there you are! When you have once made your capital, you have
27nothing to do but employ it." This was very like his way of conducting that encounter in the garden; very like. His
28manner of bearing his poverty, too, exactly corresponded to his manner of bearing that defeat. It seemed to me that he
29took all blows and buffets now with just the same air as he had taken mine then. It was evident that he had nothing
30around him but the simplest necessaries, for everything that I remarked upon turned out to have been sent in on my
31account from the coffee-house or somewhere else. Yet, having already made his fortune in his own mind, he was so
32unassuming with it that I felt quite grateful to him for not being puffed up. It was a pleasant addition to his
33naturally pleasant ways, and we got on famously. In the evening we went out for a walk in the streets, and went
34half-price to the Theatre; and next day we went to church at Westminster Abbey, and in the afternoon we walked in the
35Parks; and I wondered who shod all the horses there, and wished Joe did. On a moderate computation, it was many months,
36that Sunday, since I had left Joe and Biddy. The space interposed between myself and them partook of that expansion, and
37our marshes were any distance off. That I could have been at our old church in my old church-going clothes, on the very
38last Sunday that ever was, seemed a combination of impossibilities, geographical and social, solar and lunar. Yet in the
39London streets so crowded with people and so brilliantly lighted in the dusk of evening, there were depressing hints of
40reproaches for that I had put the poor old kitchen at home so far away; and in the dead of night, the footsteps of some
41incapable impostor of a porter mooning about Barnard's Inn, under pretence of watching it, fell hollow on my heart. On
42the Monday morning at a quarter before nine, Herbert went to the counting-house to report himself,--to look about him,
43too, I suppose,--and I bore him company. He was to come away in an hour or two to attend me to Hammersmith, and I was to
44wait about for him. It appeared to me that the eggs from which young Insurers were hatched were incubated in dust and
45heat, like the eggs of ostriches, judging from the places to which those incipient giants repaired on a Monday morning.
46Nor did the counting-house where Herbert assisted, show in my eyes as at all a good Observatory; being a back second
47floor up a yard, of a grimy presence in all particulars, and with a look into another back second floor, rather than a
48look out. I waited about until it was noon, and I went upon 'Change, and I saw fluey men sitting there under the bills
49about shipping, whom I took to be great merchants, though I couldn't understand why they should all be out of spirits.
50When Herbert came, we went and had lunch at a celebrated house which I then quite venerated, but now believe to have
51been the most abject superstition in Europe, and where I could not help noticing, even then, that there was much more
52gravy on the tablecloths and knives and waiters' clothes, than in the steaks. This collation disposed of at a moderate
53price (considering the grease, which was not charged for), we went back to Barnard's Inn and got my little portmanteau,
54and then took coach for Hammersmith. We arrived there at two or three o'clock in the afternoon, and had very little way
55to walk to Mr. Pocket's house. Lifting the latch of a gate, we passed direct into a little garden overlooking the river,
56where Mr. Pocket's children were playing about. And unless I deceive myself on a point where my interests or
57prepossessions are certainly not concerned, I saw that Mr. and Mrs. Pocket's children were not growing up or being
58brought up, but were tumbling up. Mrs. Pocket was sitting on a garden chair under a tree, reading, with her legs upon
59another garden chair; and Mrs. Pocket's two nurse-maids were looking about them while the children played. "Mamma," said
60Herbert, "this is young Mr. Pip." Upon which Mrs. Pocket received me with an appearance of amiable dignity. "Master
61Alick and Miss Jane," cried one of the nurses to two of the children, "if you go a bouncing up against them bushes
62you'll fall over into the river and be drownded, and what'll your pa say then?" At the same time this nurse picked up
63Mrs. Pocket's handkerchief, and said, "If that don't make six times you've dropped it, Mum!" Upon which Mrs. Pocket
64laughed and said, "Thank you, Flopson," and settling herself in one chair only, resumed her book. Her countenance
65immediately assumed a knitted and intent expression as if she had been reading for a week, but before she could have
66read half a dozen lines, she fixed her eyes upon me, and said, "I hope your mamma is quite well?" This unexpected
67inquiry put me into such a difficulty that I began saying in the absurdest way that if there had been any such person I
68had no doubt she would have been quite well and would have been very much obliged and would have sent her compliments,
69when the nurse came to my rescue.
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