f 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."

("Let her alone, will you?" said Joe.)

"What did you say?" cried my sister, beginning to scream. "What did you
say? What did that fellow Orlick say to me, Pip? What did he call me,
with my husband standing by? Oh! oh! oh!" Each of these exclamations was
a shriek; and I must remark of my sister, what is equally true of all
the violent women I have ever seen, that passion was no excuse for
her, because it is undeniable that instead of lapsing into passion, she
consciously and deliberately took extraordinary pains to force herself
into it, and became blindly furious by regular stages; "what was the
name he gave me before the base man who swore to defend me? Oh! Hold me!
Oh!"

"Ah-h-h!" growled the journeyman, between his teeth, "I'd hold you, if
you was my wife. I'd hold you under the pump, and choke it out of you."

("I tell you, let her alone," said Joe.)

"Oh! To hear him!" cried my sister, with a clap of her hands and a
scream together,--which was her next stage. "To hear the names he's
giving me! That Orlick! In my own house! Me, a married woman! With my
husband standing by! Oh! Oh!" Here my sister, after a fit of clappings
and screamings, beat her hands upon her bosom and upon her knees, and
threw her cap off, and pulled her hair down,--which were the last stages
on her road to frenzy. Being by this time a perfect Fury and a complete
success, she made a dash at the door which I had fortunately locked.

What could the wretched Joe do now, after his disregarded parenthetical
interruptions, but stand up to his journeyman, and ask him what he meant
by interfering betwixt himself and Mrs. Joe; and further whether he was
man enough to come on? Old Orlick felt that the situation admitted of
nothing less than coming on, and was on his defence straightway; so,
without so much as pulling off their singed and burnt aprons, they went
at one another, like two giants. But, if any man in that neighborhood
could stand uplong against Joe, I never saw the man. Orlick, as if he
had been of no more account than the pale young gentleman, was very
soon among the coal-dust, and in no hurry to come out of it. Then Joe
unlocked the door and pic