“Ham,” he presently resumed, “he’ll hold to his present work, and go and live along with my sister. The old boat yonder⁠—”

“Will you desert the old boat, Mr. Peggotty?” I gently interposed.

“My station, Mas’r Davy,” he returned, “ain’t there no longer; and if ever a boat foundered, since there was darkness on the face of the deep, that one’s gone down. But no, sir, no; I doen’t mean as it should be deserted. Fur from that.”

We walked again for a while, as before, until he explained: