g
it midway, beating it up, and humoring it in various parts of the room
and against a good deal of the pattern of the paper on the wall,
before he felt it safe to close with it; finally splashing it into the
slop-basin, where I took the liberty of laying hands upon it.

As to his shirt-collar, and his coat-collar, they were perplexing to
reflect upon,--insoluble mysteries both. Why should a man scrape himself
to that extent, before he could consider himself full dressed? Why
should he suppose it necessary to be purified by suffering for
his holiday clothes? Then he fell into such unaccountable fits of
meditation, with his fork midway between his plate and his mouth; had
his eyes attracted in such strange directions; was afflicted with such
remarkable coughs; sat so far from the table, and dropped so much
more than he ate, and pretended that he hadn't dropped it; that I was
heartily glad when Herbert left us for the City.

I had neither the good sense nor the good feeling to know that this was
all my fault, and that if I had been easier with Joe, Joe would have
been easier with me. I felt impatient of him and out of temper with him;
in which condition he heaped coals of fire on my head.

"Us two being now alone, sir,"--began Joe.

"Joe," I interrupted, pettishly, "how can you call me, sir?"

Joe looked at me for a single instant with something faintly like
reproach. Utterly preposterous as his cravat was, and as his collars
were, I was conscious of a sort of dignity in the look.

"Us two being now alone," resumed Joe, "and me having the intentions and
abilities to stay not many minutes more, I will now conclude--leastways
begin--to mention what have led to my having had the present honor. For
was it not," said Joe, with his old air of lucid exposition, "that my
only wish were to be useful to you, I should not have had the honor of
breaking wittles in the company and abode of gentlemen."

I was so unwilling to see the look again, that I made no remonstrance
against this tone.

"Well, sir," pursued Joe, "this is how it were. I were at the Bargemen
t'other night, Pip;"--whenever he subsided into affection, he called me
Pip, and whenever he relapsed into politeness he called me sir; "when
there come up in his shay-cart, Pumblechook. Which that same identical,"
said Joe, going down a new track, "do comb my 'air the wrong way
sometimes, awful, by giving out up and down town as it were him which
ever had your infant c