round the room and snapping his fingers once with
a loud snap, "blast you every one, from the judge in his wig, to the
colonist a stirring up the dust, I'll show a better gentleman than the
whole kit on you put together!"

"Stop!" said I, almost in a frenzy of fear and dislike, "I want to speak
to you. I want to know what is to be done. I want to know how you are to
be kept out of danger, how long you are going to stay, what projects you
have."

"Look'ee here, Pip," said he, laying his hand on my arm in a suddenly
altered and subdued manner; "first of all, look'ee here. I forgot myself
half a minute ago. What I said was low; that's what it was; low. Look'ee
here, Pip. Look over it. I ain't a going to be low."

"First," I resumed, half groaning, "what precautions can be taken
against your being recognized and seized?"

"No, dear boy," he said, in the same tone as before, "that don't
go first. Lowness goes first. I ain't took so many year to make a
gentleman, not without knowing what's due to him. Look'ee here, Pip. I
was low; that's what I was; low. Look over it, dear boy."

Some sense of the grimly-ludicrous moved me to a fretful laugh, as I
replied, "I have looked over it. In Heaven's name, don't harp upon it!"

"Yes, but look'ee here," he persisted. "Dear boy, I ain't come so fur,
not fur to be low. Now, go on, dear boy. You was a saying--"

"How are you to be guarded from the danger you have incurred?"

"Well, dear boy, the danger ain't so great. Without I was informed
agen, the danger ain't so much to signify. There's Jaggers, and there's
Wemmick, and there's you. Who else is there to inform?"

"Is there no chance person who might identify you in the street?" said
I.

"Well," he returned, "there ain't many. Nor yet I don't intend to
advertise myself in the newspapers by the name of A.M. come back from
Botany Bay; and years have rolled away, and who's to gain by it? Still,
look'ee here, Pip. If the danger had been fifty times as great, I should
ha' come to see you, mind you, just the same."

"And how long do you remain?"

"How long?" said he, taking his black pipe from his mouth, and dropping
his jaw as he stared at me. "I'm not a going back. I've come for good."

"Where are you to live?" said I. "What is to be done with you? Where
will you be safe?"

"Dear boy," he returned, "there's disguising wigs can be bought
for money, and there's hair powder, and spectacles, and black
clothes,--shorts and wha