repeated, "In a black velvet coach?"

"Yes," said I. "And Miss Estella--that's her niece, I think--handed her
in cake and wine at the coach-window, on a gold plate. And we all had
cake and wine on gold plates. And I got up behind the coach to eat mine,
because she told me to."

"Was anybody else there?" asked Mr. Pumblechook.

"Four dogs," said I.

"Large or small?"

"Immense," said I. "And they fought for veal-cutlets out of a silver
basket."

Mr. Pumblechook and Mrs. Joe stared at one another again, in utter
amazement. I was perfectly frantic,--a reckless witness under the
torture,--and would have told them anything.

"Where was this coach, in the name of gracious?" asked my sister.

"In Miss Havisham's room." They stared again. "But there weren't any
horses to it." I added this saving clause, in the moment of rejecting
four richly caparisoned coursers which I had had wild thoughts of
harnessing.

"Can this be possible, uncle?" asked Mrs. Joe. "What can the boy mean?"

"I'll tell you, Mum," said Mr. Pumblechook. "My opinion is, it's a
sedan-chair. She's flighty, you know,--very flighty,--quite flighty
enough to pass her days in a sedan-chair."

"Did you ever see her in it, uncle?" asked Mrs. Joe.

"How could I," he returned, forced to the admission, "when I never see
her in my life? Never clapped eyes upon her!"

"Goodness, uncle! And yet you have spoken to her?"

"Why, don't you know," said Mr. Pumblechook, testily, "that when I have
been there, I have been took up to the outside of her door, and the door
has stood ajar, and she has spoke to me that way. Don't say you don't
know that, Mum. Howsever, the boy went there to play. What did you play
at, boy?"

"We played with flags," I said. (I beg to observe that I think of myself
with amazement, when I recall the lies I told on this occasion.)

"Flags!" echoed my sister.

"Yes," said I. "Estella waved a blue flag, and I waved a red one, and
Miss Havisham waved one sprinkled all over with little gold stars, out
at the coach-window. And then we all waved our swords and hurrahed."

"Swords!" repeated my sister. "Where did you get swords from?"

"Out of a cupboard," said I. "And I saw pistols in it,--and jam,--and
pills. And there was no daylight in the room, but it was all lighted up
with candles."

"That's true, Mum," said Mr. Pumblechook, with a grave nod. "That's the
state of the case, for that much I've seen myself." And then they
both stared