twined his side-hair, stuck an arm akimbo,
and smirked extravagantly by, wriggling his
elbows and body, and drawling to his attendants,
"Don't know yah, don't know yah, pon my
soul don't know yah!"  The disgrace attendant
on his immediately afterwards taking to crowing
and pursuing me across the bridge with crows as
from an exceedingly dejected fowl who had
known me when I was a blacksmith, culminated
the disgrace with which I left the town, and
was, so to speak, ejected by it into the open
country.

But unless I had taken the life of Trabb's
boy on that occasion, I really do not even now
see what I could have done save endure. To
have struggled with him in the street, or to have
exacted any lower recompense from him than his
heart's best blood would have been futile and
degrading. Moreover, he was a boy whom no man
could hurt; an invulnerable and dodging
serpent who, when chased into a corner, flew out
again between his captor's legs, scornfully yelping.
I wrote, however, to Mr. Trabb by next
day's post, to say that Mr. Pip must decline to
deal further with one who could so far forget
what he owed to the best interests of society,
as to employ a boy who excited Loathing in every
respectable mind.

The coach, with Mr. Jaggers inside, came up
in due time, and I took my box-seat again, and
arrived in London safe — but not sound, for
my heart was gone. As soon as I arrived, I
sent a penitential codfish and barrel of oysters
to Joe (as reparation for not having gone
myself), and then went on to Barnard's Inn.

I found Herbert dining on cold meat, and
delighted to welcome me back. Having despatched
The Avenger to the coffee-house for an addition
to the dinner, I felt that I must open my breast
that very evening to my friend and chum. As
confidence was out of the question with The
Avenger in the hall, which could merely be
regarded in the light of an ante-chamber to the
keyhole, I sent him to the Play. A better
proof of the severity of my bondage to that
taskmaster could scarcely be afforded, than the
degrading shifts to which I was constantly
driven to find him employment. So mean is
extremity, that I sometimes sent him to
Hyde Park-corner to see what o'clock it was.

Dinner done and we sitting with our feet upon
the fender, I said to Herbert, "My dear
Herbert, I have something very particular to tell
you."

"My dear Handel," he returned, "I shall
esteem and respect your confidence."

"It concerns myself, Herbert," said I, "and
one other person."

Herbert crossed his feet, looked at the fire
with his head on one side, and having looked at
it in vain for some time, looked at me because I
didn't go on.

"Herbert," said I, laying my hand upon his
knee. " I love — I adore — Estella."

Instead of being transfixed, Herbert replied
in an easy matter-of-course way, " Exactly.
Well?"

"Well, Herbert? Is that all you say?
Well?"

"What next, I mean?" said Herbert. " Of
course I know that."

"How do you know it?" said I.

"How do I know it, Handel? Why, from
you."

"I never told you."

"Told me! You have never told me when
you have got your hair cut, but I have had
senses to perceive it. You have always adored
her, ever since I have known you. You brought
your adoration and your portmanteau here,
together. Told me! Why, you have always told
me all day long. When you told me your own
story, you told me plainly that you began adoring
her the first time you saw her, when you were
very young indeed."

"Very well, then," said I, to whom this was
a new and not unwelcome light, " I have never
left off adoring her. And she has come back a
most beautiful and most elegant creature. And
I saw her yesterday. And if I adored her
before, I now doubly adore her."

"Lucky for you then, Handel," said Herbert,
"that you are picked out for her and allotted to
her. Without encroaching on forbidden ground,
we may venture to say that there can be no
doubt between ourselves of that fact. Have
you any idea yet, of Estella's views on the
adoration question?"

I shook my head gloomily.  " Oh! She is
thousands of miles away, from me," said I.

"Patience, my dear Handel: time enough,
time enough. But you have something more to
say?"

"I am ashamed to say it," I returned, "and
yet it's no worse to say it than to think it. You
call me a lucky fellow. Of course, I am. I was
a blacksmith's boy but yesterday; I am — what
shall I say I am— to-day?"

"Say, a good fellow, if you want a phrase,"
returned Herbert, smiling, and clapping his
hand on the back of mine, " a good fellow with
impetuosity and hesitation, boldness and
diffidence, action and dreaming, curiously mixed in
him."

I stopped for a moment to consider whether
there really was this mixture in my character.
On the whole, I by no means recognised the
analysis, but thought it not worth disputing.

"When I ask what I am to call myself to-day,
Herbert," I went on, "I suggest what I
have in my thoughts. You say I am lucky. I
know I have done nothing to raise myself in life,
and that Fortune alone has raised me; that is
being very lucky. And yet, when I think of
Estella—— "

("And when don't you, you know?" Herbert
threw in, with his eyes on the fire; which I
thought kind and sympathetic of him.)

"— Then, my dear Herbert, I cannot tell you
how dependent and uncertain I feel, and how
exposed to hundreds of chances. Avoiding
forbidden ground as you did just now, I may still
say that on the constancy of one person (naming
no person) all my expectations depend. And at