Great Expectations

By that time, I was staggering on the kitchen floor like a little

drunkard, through having been newly set upon my feet, and through having

been fast asleep, and through waking in the heat and lights and noise of

tongues. As I came to myself (with the aid of a heavy thump between the

shoulders, and the restorative exclamation "Yah! Was there ever such

a boy as this!" from my sister,) I found Joe telling them about the

convict's confession, and all the visitors suggesting different ways

by which he had got into the pantry. Mr. Pumblechook made out, after

carefully surveying the premises, that he had first got upon the roof of

the forge, and had then got upon the roof of the house, and had then let

himself down the kitchen chimney by a rope made of his bedding cut

into strips; and as Mr. Pumblechook was very positive and drove his

own chaise-cart--over Everybody--it was agreed that it must be so. Mr.

Wopsle, indeed, wildly cried out, "No!" with the feeble malice of a

tired man; but, as he had no theory, and no coat on, he was unanimously

set at naught,--not to mention his smoking hard behind, as he stood

with his back to the kitchen fire to draw the damp out: which was not

calculated to inspire confidence.

This was all I heard that night before my sister clutched me, as a

slumberous offence to the company's eyesight, and assisted me up to bed

with such a strong hand that I seemed to have fifty boots on, and to be

dangling them all against the edges of the stairs. My state of mind, as

I have described it, began before I was up in the morning, and lasted

long after the subject had died out, and had ceased to be mentioned

saving on exceptional occasions.