In these discussions, Joe bore no part. But he was often talked at,
while they were in progress, by reason of Mrs. Joe's perceiving that
he was not favorable to my being taken from the forge. I was fully old
enough now to be apprenticed to Joe; and when Joe sat with the poker on
his knees thoughtfully raking out the ashes between the lower bars, my
sister would so distinctly construe that innocent action into opposition
on his part, that she would dive at him, take the poker out of his
hands, shake him, and put it away. There was a most irritating end to
every one of these debates. All in a moment, with nothing to lead up to
it, my sister would stop herself in a yawn, and catching sight of me as
it were incidentally, would swoop upon me with, "Come! there's enough of
you! You get along to bed; you've given trouble enough for one night, I
hope!" As if I had besought them as a favor to bother my life out.
We went on in this way for a long time, and it seemed likely that we
should continue to go on in this way for a long time, when one day Miss
Havisham stopped short as she and I were walking, she leaning on my
shoulder; and said with some displeasure,-"You are growing tall, Pip!"
I thought it best to hint, through the medium of a meditative look, that
this might be occasioned by circumstances over which I had no control.
She said no more at the time; but she presently stopped and looked at me
again; and presently again; and after that, looked frowning and moody.
On the next day of my attendance, when our usual exercise was over, and
I had landed her at her dressing-table, she stayed me with a movement of
her impatient fingers:-"Tell me the name again of that blacksmith of yours."
"Joe Gargery, ma'am."
"Meaning the master you were to be apprenticed to?"
"Yes, Miss Havisham."
"You had better be apprenticed at once. Would Gargery come here with
you, and bring your indentures, do you think?"
I signified that I had no doubt he would take it as an honor to be
asked.
"Then let him come."
"At any particular time, Miss Havisham?"
"There, there! I know nothing about times. Let him come soon, and come
along with you."
When I got home at night, and delivered this message for Joe, my sister
"went on the Rampage," in a more alarming degree than at any previous
period. She asked me and Joe whether we supposed she was door-mats under
our feet, and how we dared to use her so, and what company we graciously
thought she was fit for? When she had exhausted a torrent of such
inquiries, she threw a candlestick at Joe, burst into a loud sobbing,
got out the dustpan,--which was always a very bad sign,--put on her
coarse apron, and began cleaning up to a terrible extent. Not satisfied
with a dry cleaning, she took to a pail and scrubbing-brush, and cleaned
us out of house and home, so that we stood shivering in the back-yard.
It was ten o'clock at night before we ventured to creep in again, and
then she asked Joe why he hadn't married a Negress Slave at once?
Joe offered no answer, poor fellow, but stood feeling his whisker and
looking dejectedly at me, as if he thought it really might have been a
better speculation.