Great Expectations
Page 97"Why, what'll you do with a half-holiday, if you get it?" said Joe.
"What'll I do with it! What'll he do with it? I'll do as much with it as
him," said Orlick.
"As to Pip, he's going up town," said Joe.
"Well then, as to Old Orlick, he's a going up town," retorted that
worthy. "Two can go up town. Tain't only one wot can go up town.
"Don't lose your temper," said Joe.
"Shall if I like," growled Orlick. "Some and their up-towning! Now,
master! Come. No favoring in this shop. Be a man!"
a better temper, Orlick plunged at the furnace, drew out a red-hot
bar, made at me with it as if he were going to run it through my body,
whisked it round my head, laid it on the anvil, hammered it out,--as
if it were I, I thought, and the sparks were my spirting blood,--and
finally said, when he had hammered himself hot and the iron cold, and he
again leaned on his hammer,-"Now, master!"
"Are you all right now?" demanded Joe.
"Ah! I am all right," said gruff Old Orlick.
Joe, "let it be a half-holiday for all."
My sister had been standing silent in the yard, within hearing,--she was
a most unscrupulous spy and listener,--and she instantly looked in at
one of the windows.
"Like you, you fool!" said she to Joe, "giving holidays to great idle
hulkers like that. You are a rich man, upon my life, to waste wages in
that way. I wish I was his master!"
"You'd be everybody's master, if you durst," retorted Orlick, with an
("Let her alone," said Joe.) "I'd be a match for all noodles and all rogues," returned my sister,
beginning to work herself into a mighty rage. "And I couldn't be a
match for the noodles, without being a match for your master, who's the
dunder-headed king of the noodles. And I couldn't be a match for the
rogues, without being a match for you, who are the blackest-looking and
the worst rogue between this and France. Now!"
"You're a foul shrew, Mother Gargery," growled the journeyman. "If that
makes a judge of rogues, you ought to be a good'un."