Great Expectations

Having borne this flattering testimony to the merits of our

dwelling-place, and having incidentally shown this tendency to call me

"sir," Joe, being invited to sit down to table, looked all round the

room for a suitable spot on which to deposit his hat,--as if it were

only on some very few rare substances in nature that it could find a

resting place,--and ultimately stood it on an extreme corner of the

chimney-piece, from which it ever afterwards fell off at intervals.

"Do you take tea, or coffee, Mr. Gargery?" asked Herbert, who always

presided of a morning.

"Thankee, Sir," said Joe, stiff from head to foot, "I'll take whichever

is most agreeable to yourself."

"What do you say to coffee?"

"Thankee, Sir," returned Joe, evidently dispirited by the proposal,

"since you are so kind as make chice of coffee, I will not run contrairy

to your own opinions. But don't you never find it a little 'eating?"

"Say tea then," said Herbert, pouring it out.

Here Joe's hat tumbled off the mantel-piece, and he started out of his

chair and picked it up, and fitted it to the same exact spot. As if it

were an absolute point of good breeding that it should tumble off again

soon.

"When did you come to town, Mr. Gargery?"

"Were it yesterday afternoon?" said Joe, after coughing behind his hand,

as if he had had time to catch the whooping-cough since he came. "No

it were not. Yes it were. Yes. It were yesterday afternoon" (with an

appearance of mingled wisdom, relief, and strict impartiality).

"Have you seen anything of London yet?"

"Why, yes, Sir," said Joe, "me and Wopsle went off straight to look at

the Blacking Ware'us. But we didn't find that it come up to its likeness

in the red bills at the shop doors; which I meantersay," added Joe, in

an explanatory manner, "as it is there drawd too architectooralooral."

I really believe Joe would have prolonged this word (mightily expressive

to my mind of some architecture that I know) into a perfect Chorus, but

for his attention being providentially attracted by his hat, which

was toppling. Indeed, it demanded from him a constant attention, and a

quickness of eye and hand, very like that exacted by wicket-keeping.

He made extraordinary play with it, and showed the greatest skill; now,

rushing at it and catching it neatly as it dropped; now, merely stopping

it midway, beating it up, and humoring it in various parts of the room

and against a good deal of the pattern of the paper on the wall,

before he felt it safe to close with it; finally splashing it into the

slop-basin, where I took the liberty of laying hands upon it.