, go
with me as far as the finger-post, dear Joe and Biddy, before we say
good by!"

I sold all I had, and put aside as much as I could, for a composition
with my creditors,--who gave me ample time to pay them in full,--and I
went out and joined Herbert. Within a month, I had quitted England,
and within two months I was clerk to Clarriker and Co., and within four
months I assumed my first undivided responsibility. For the beam across
the parlor ceiling at Mill Pond Bank had then ceased to tremble under
old Bill Barley's growls and was at peace, and Herbert had gone away to
marry Clara, and I was left in sole charge of the Eastern Branch until
he brought her back.

Many a year went round before I was a partner in the House; but I lived
happily with Herbert and his wife, and lived frugally, and paid my
debts, and maintained a constant correspondence with Biddy and Joe. It
was not until I became third in the Firm, that Clarriker betrayed me to
Herbert; but he then declared that the secret of Herbert's partnership
had been long enough upon his conscience, and he must tell it. So he
told it, and Herbert was as much moved as amazed, and the dear fellow
and I were not the worse friends for the long concealment. I must not
leave it to be supposed that we were ever a great House, or that we made
mints of money. We were not in a grand way of business, but we had a
good name, and worked for our profits, and did very well. We owed so
much to Herbert's ever cheerful industry and readiness, that I often
wondered how I had conceived that old idea of his inaptitude, until I
was one day enlightened by the reflection, that perhaps the inaptitude
had never been in him at all, but had been in me.

Chapter LIX

For eleven years, I had not seen Joe nor Biddy with my bodily
Eyes,--though they had both been often before my fancy in the
East,--when, upon an evening in December, an hour or two after dark, I
laid my hand softly on the latch of the old kitchen door. I touched it
so softly that I was not heard, and looked in unseen. There, smoking his
pipe in the old place by the kitchen firelight, as hale and as strong as
ever, though a little gray, sat Joe; and there, fenced into the corner
with Joe's leg, and sitting on my own little stool looking at the fire,
was--I again!

"We giv' him the name of Pip for your sake, dear old chap," said Joe,
delighted, when I took another stool by the child's side (but I did not
rumple his hair),