Great Expectations
Page 299"Tramping, begging, thieving, working sometimes when I could,--though
that warn't as often as you may think, till you put the question whether
you would ha' been over-ready to give me work yourselves,--a bit of a
poacher, a bit of a laborer, a bit of a wagoner, a bit of a haymaker,
a bit of a hawker, a bit of most things that don't pay and lead to
trouble, I got to be a man. A deserting soldier in a Traveller's Rest,
what lay hid up to the chin under a lot of taturs, learnt me to read;
and a travelling Giant what signed his name at a penny a time learnt me
good share of key-metal still.
"At Epsom races, a matter of over twenty years ago, I got acquainted wi'
a man whose skull I'd crack wi' this poker, like the claw of a lobster,
if I'd got it on this hob. His right name was Compeyson; and that's the
man, dear boy, what you see me a pounding in the ditch, according to
what you truly told your comrade arter I was gone last night.
"He set up fur a gentleman, this Compeyson, and he'd been to a public
a dab at the ways of gentlefolks. He was good-looking too. It was the
night afore the great race, when I found him on the heath, in a booth
that I know'd on. Him and some more was a sitting among the tables when
I went in, and the landlord (which had a knowledge of me, and was a
sporting one) called him out, and said, 'I think this is a man that
might suit you,'--meaning I was.
"Compeyson, he looks at me very noticing, and I look at him. He has a
clothes.
"'To judge from appearances, you're out of luck,' says Compeyson to me.
"'Yes, master, and I've never been in it much.' (I had come out of
Kingston Jail last on a vagrancy committal. Not but what it might have
been for something else; but it warn't.) "'Luck changes,' says Compeyson; 'perhaps yours is going to change.' "I says, 'I hope it may be so. There's room.' "'What can you do?' says Compeyson.
"'Eat and drink,' I says; 'if you'll find the materials.' "Compeyson laughed, looked at me again very noticing, giv me five
shillings, and appointed me for next night. Same place.