United States or Thailand ? Vote for the TOP Country of the Week !
I moved the table, like a Medium of the present day, by the vigor of my unseen hold upon it. "Tar!" cried my sister, in amazement. "Why, how ever could Tar come there?" But, Uncle Pumblechook, who was omnipotent in that kitchen, wouldn't hear the word, wouldn't hear of the subject, imperiously waved it all away with his hand, and asked for hot gin and water.
Then the window was shut, and a very pretty, proud-appearing young lady came down with keys in her hand. She opened the gate to let me in, and Uncle Pumblechook was about to follow, when the young lady remarked that Miss Havisham did not wish to see him.
In these dialogues, my sister spoke to me as if she were morally wrenching one of my teeth out at every reference; while Pumblechook himself, self-constituted my patron, would sit supervising me with a depreciatory eye, like the architect of my fortunes who thought himself engaged on a very unremunerative job. In these discussions, Joe bore no part.
"Pretty well?" Mr. Pumblechook repeated. "Pretty well is no answer. Tell us what you mean by pretty well, boy?" Whitewash on the forehead hardens the brain into a state of obstinacy perhaps. Anyhow, with whitewash from the wall on my forehead, my obstinacy was adamantine. I reflected for some time, and then answered as if I had discovered a new idea, "I mean pretty well."
Standing at this table, I became conscious of the servile Pumblechook in a black cloak and several yards of hatband, who was alternately stuffing himself, and making obsequious movements to catch my attention. I then descried Mr. and Mrs. Hubble; the last-named in a decent speechless paroxysm in a corner. "Which I meantersay, Pip," Joe whispered me, as we were being what Mr.
I calculated the consequences of replying "Four Hundred Pound," and finding them against me, went as near the answer as I could which was somewhere about eightpence off. Mr. Pumblechook then put me through my pence-table from "twelve pence make one shilling," up to "forty pence make three and fourpence," and then triumphantly demanded, as if he had done for me, "Now!
Pumblechook, in the way of a compassionate adjuration. "Joseph!! Joseph!!!" Thereupon he shook his head and tapped it, expressing his sense of deficiency in Joseph. "But my dear young friend," said Mr. Pumblechook, "you must be hungry, you must be exhausted. Be seated.
"She was sitting," I answered, "in a black velvet coach." Mr. Pumblechook and Mrs. Joe stared at one another as they well Might and both repeated, "In a black velvet coach?" "Yes," said I. "And Miss Estella that's her niece, I think handed her in cake and wine at the coach-window, on a gold plate. And we all had cake and wine on gold plates.
As I was not able to cut my dinner, the old landlord with a shining bald head did it for me. This bringing us into conversation, he was so good as to entertain me with my own story, of course with the popular feature that Pumblechook was my earliest benefactor and the founder of my fortunes. "Do you know the young man?" said I. "Know him!" repeated the landlord.
I entertain a conviction, based upon large experience, that if in the days of my prosperity I had gone to the North Pole, I should have met somebody there, wandering Esquimaux or civilized man, who would have told me that Pumblechook was my earliest patron and the founder of my fortunes. Betimes in the morning I was up and out.
Word Of The Day