As I was getting too big for Mr. Wopsle's great-aunt's room, my

education under that preposterous female terminated. Not, however, until

Biddy had imparted to me everything she knew, from the little catalogue

of prices, to a comic song she had once bought for a half-penny.

Although the only coherent part of the latter piece of literature were

the opening lines,

When I went to Lunnon town sirs,

Too rul loo rul Too rul loo rul

Wasn't I done very brown sirs?

Too rul loo rul Too rul loo rul

--still, in my desire to be wiser, I got this composition by heart with the utmost

gravity; nor do I recollect that I questioned its merit, except that I

thought (as I still do) the amount of Too rul somewhat in excess of the

poetry. In my hunger for information, I made proposals to Mr. Wopsle to

bestow some intellectual crumbs upon me, with which he kindly complied.

As it turned out, however, that he only wanted me for a dramatic

lay-figure, to be contradicted and embraced and wept over and bullied

and clutched and stabbed and knocked about in a variety of ways, I soon

declined that course of instruction; though not until Mr. Wopsle in his

poetic fury had severely mauled me.

Whatever I acquired, I tried to impart to Joe. This statement sounds so

well, that I cannot in my conscience let it pass unexplained. I wanted

to make Joe less ignorant and common, that he might be worthier of my

society and less open to Estella's reproach.

The old Battery out on the marshes was our place of study, and a broken

slate and a short piece of slate-pencil were our educational implements:

to which Joe always added a pipe of tobacco. I never knew Joe to

remember anything from one Sunday to another, or to acquire, under my

tuition, any piece of information whatever. Yet he would smoke his pipe

at the Battery with a far more sagacious air than anywhere else,--even

with a learned air,--as if he considered himself to be advancing

immensely. Dear fellow, I hope he did.

It was pleasant and quiet, out there with the sails on the river passing

beyond the earthwork, and sometimes, when the tide was low, looking

as if they belonged to sunken ships that were still sailing on at the

bottom of the water. Whenever I watched the vessels standing out to sea

with their white sails spread, I somehow thought of Miss Havisham and

Estella; and whenever the light struck aslant, afar off, upon a cloud

or sail or green hillside or water-line, it was just the same.--Miss

Havisham and Estella and the strange house and the strange life appeared

to have something to do with everything that was picturesque.




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