Great Expectations

As she applied herself to set the tea-things, Joe peeped down at me

over his leg, as if he were mentally casting me and himself up, and

calculating what kind of pair we practically should make, under the

grievous circumstances foreshadowed. After that, he sat feeling his

right-side flaxen curls and whisker, and following Mrs. Joe about with

his blue eyes, as his manner always was at squally times.

My sister had a trenchant way of cutting our bread and butter for us,

that never varied. First, with her left hand she jammed the loaf hard

and fast against her bib,--where it sometimes got a pin into it, and

sometimes a needle, which we afterwards got into our mouths. Then she

took some butter (not too much) on a knife and spread it on the loaf, in

an apothecary kind of way, as if she were making a plaster,--using both

sides of the knife with a slapping dexterity, and trimming and moulding

the butter off round the crust. Then, she gave the knife a final smart

wipe on the edge of the plaster, and then sawed a very thick round off

the loaf: which she finally, before separating from the loaf, hewed into

two halves, of which Joe got one, and I the other.

On the present occasion, though I was hungry, I dared not eat my

slice. I felt that I must have something in reserve for my dreadful

acquaintance, and his ally the still more dreadful young man. I knew

Mrs. Joe's housekeeping to be of the strictest kind, and that my

larcenous researches might find nothing available in the safe. Therefore

I resolved to put my hunk of bread and butter down the leg of my

trousers.

The effort of resolution necessary to the achievement of this purpose I

found to be quite awful. It was as if I had to make up my mind to leap

from the top of a high house, or plunge into a great depth of water.

And it was made the more difficult by the unconscious Joe. In

our already-mentioned freemasonry as fellow-sufferers, and in his

good-natured companionship with me, it was our evening habit to compare

the way we bit through our slices, by silently holding them up to each

other's admiration now and then,--which stimulated us to new exertions.

To-night, Joe several times invited me, by the display of his fast

diminishing slice, to enter upon our usual friendly competition; but

he found me, each time, with my yellow mug of tea on one knee, and

my untouched bread and butter on the other. At last, I desperately

considered that the thing I contemplated must be done, and that it

had best be done in the least improbable manner consistent with the

circumstances. I took advantage of a moment when Joe had just looked at

me, and got my bread and butter down my leg.