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My sister looked at Pumblechook: who smoothed the elbows of his wooden arm-chair, and nodded at her and at the fire, as if he had known all about it beforehand. "And how much have you got?" asked my sister, laughing. Positively laughing! "What would present company say to ten pound?" demanded Joe. "They'd say," returned my sister, curtly, "pretty well. Not too much, but pretty well."
Sometimes he would pull my arm while we were walking together and whisper, "Let us avoid Mr. Pumblechook, who is crossing the street to meet us"; or, "Mr. Micawber is coming; let us turn down this alley to get out of his way." He always seemed to enjoy the fun of his comic people, and had unceasing mirth over Mr. Pickwick's misadventures.
Pumblechook, leading the company gently back to the theme from which they had strayed, "Pork regarded as biled is rich, too; ain't it?" "Have a little brandy, uncle," said my sister. O Heavens, it had come at last! He would find it was weak, he would say it was weak, and I was lost! I held tight to the leg of the table under the cloth, with both hands, and awaited my fate.
Wopsle, Mr. and Mrs. Hubble, and Uncle Pumblechook, Joe's uncle, who lived in the nearest town and drove his own chaise cart. Dinner was a brilliant success, but so rich that Uncle Pumblechook was entirely overcome, and was obliged to call for brandy. Oh heavens! he would say it was weak, and I should be lost! I held tight to the leg of the table and awaited my fate.
"Say you said that, and even Joseph will probably betray surprise." "There you quite mistake him," said I. "I know better." "Says you," Pumblechook went on, "'Joseph, I have seen that man, and that man bears you no malice and bears me no malice.
"It's more than that, then," said Joe. That fearful Impostor, Pumblechook, immediately nodded, and said, as he rubbed the arms of his chair, "It's more than that, Mum." "Why, you don't mean to say " began my sister. "Yes I do, Mum," said Pumblechook; "but wait a bit. Go on, Joseph. Good in you! Go on!" "What would present company say," proceeded Joe, "to twenty pound?"
Pumblechook, who formally received me as if he were the Sheriff, and who let off upon me the speech that I knew he had been dying to make all along: "Boy, be forever grateful to all friends, but especially unto them which brought you up by hand!" "Good-bye, Joe!" "God bless you, Pip, old chap!"
She said it in such an undiscussible way that Uncle Pumblechook dared not protest, and so I followed my young guide in alone and crossed the court-yard. We entered the house by a side door the great front entrance had chains across it and we went through many passages, and up a staircase, in the dark except for a single candle. At last we came to the door of a room, and she said, "Go in."
If the villain had stopped here, his case would have been sufficiently awful, but he blackened his guilt by proceeding to take me into custody, with a right of patronage that left all his former criminality far behind. "Now you see, Joseph and wife," said Pumblechook, as he took me by the arm above the elbow, "I am one of them that always go right through with what they've begun.
And Lor-a-mussy me!" cried my sister, casting off her bonnet in sudden desperation, "here I stand talking to mere Mooncalfs, with Uncle Pumblechook waiting, and the mare catching cold at the door, and the boy grimed with crock and dirt from the hair of his head to the sole of his foot!"
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