The client looked scared, but bewildered too, as if he were unconscious
what he had done.
"Spooney!" said the clerk, in a low voice, giving him a stir with his
elbow. "Soft Head! Need you say it face to face?"
"Now, I ask you, you blundering booby," said my guardian, very sternly,
"once more and for the last time, what the man you have brought here is
prepared to swear?"
Mike looked hard at my guardian, as if he were trying to learn a lesson
from his face, and slowly replied, "Ayther to character, or to having
been in his company and never left him all the night in question."
"Now, be careful. In what station of life is this man?"
Mike looked at his cap, and looked at the floor, and looked at the
ceiling, and looked at the clerk, and even looked at me, before
beginning to reply in a nervous manner, "We've dressed him up like--"
when my guardian blustered out,-"What? You WILL, will you?"
("Spooney!" added the clerk again, with another stir.) After some helpless casting about, Mike brightened and began again:-"He is dressed like a 'spectable pieman. A sort of a pastry-cook."
"Is he here?" asked my guardian.
"I left him," said Mike, "a setting on some doorsteps round the corner."
"Take him past that window, and let me see him."
The window indicated was the office window. We all three went to
it, behind the wire blind, and presently saw the client go by in an
accidental manner, with a murderous-looking tall individual, in a short
suit of white linen and a paper cap. This guileless confectioner was not
by any means sober, and had a black eye in the green stage of recovery,
which was painted over.
"Tell him to take his witness away directly," said my guardian to the
clerk, in extreme disgust, "and ask him what he means by bringing such a
fellow as that."
My guardian then took me into his own room, and while he lunched,
standing, from a sandwich-box and a pocket-flask of sherry (he seemed to
bully his very sandwich as he ate it), informed me what arrangements he
had made for me. I was to go to "Barnard's Inn," to young Mr. Pocket's
rooms, where a bed had been sent in for my accommodation; I was to
remain with young Mr. Pocket until Monday; on Monday I was to go with
him to his father's house on a visit, that I might try how I liked it.
Also, I was told what my allowance was to be,--it was a very liberal
one,--and had handed to me from one of my guardian's drawers, the cards
of certain tradesmen with whom I was to deal for all kinds of clothes,
and such other things as I could in reason want. "You will find your
credit good, Mr. Pip," said my guardian, whose flask of sherry smelt
like a whole caskful, as he hastily refreshed himself, "but I shall by
this means be able to check your bills, and to pull you up if I find you
outrunning the constable. Of course you'll go wrong somehow, but that's
no fault of mine."