“So it was.”
“Astonishing!” said Joe, in the placidest way.
“Did you hear that he was dead, Joe?” I presently asked, with increasing diffidence.
“Which? Him as sent the banknotes, Pip?”
“Yes.”
“I think,” said Joe, after meditating a long time, and looking rather evasively at the window-seat, “as I did hear tell that how he were something or another in a general way in that direction.”
“Did you hear anything of his circumstances, Joe?”
“Not partickler, Pip.”
“If you would like to hear, Joe—” I was beginning, when Joe got up and came to my sofa.
“Lookee here, old chap,” said Joe, bending over me. “Ever the best of friends; ain’t us, Pip?”
I was ashamed to answer him.
“Wery good, then,” said Joe, as if I had answered; “that’s all right; that’s agreed upon. Then why go into subjects, old chap, which as betwixt two sech must be forever onnecessary? There’s subjects enough as betwixt two sech, without onnecessary ones. Lord! To think of your poor sister and her rampages! And don’t you remember Tickler?”
“I do indeed, Joe.”
“Lookee here, old chap,” said Joe. “I done what I could to keep you and Tickler in sunders, but my power were not always fully equal to my