Then he threatened all sorts of dreadful
and terrible things to poor Pip if he failed to do all he had commanded,
and made him solemnly promise to bring him what he wanted, and to keep
the secret. Then he let him go, saying, "You remember what you've
undertook, and you get home."

"Goo--good-night, sir," faltered Pip.

"Much of that!" said he, glancing over the cold wet flat. "I wish I was
a frog or a eel!"

Pip ran home without stopping. Joe was sitting in the chimney-corner,
and told him Mrs. Joe had been out to look for him, and taken Tickler
with her. Tickler was a cane, and Pip was rather downhearted by this
piece of news.

Mrs. Joe came in almost directly, and, after having given Pip a taste of
Tickler, she sat down to prepare the tea, and, cutting a huge slice of
bread and butter, she gave half of it to Joe and half to Pip. Pip
managed, after some time, to slip his down the leg of his trousers, and
Joe, thinking he had swallowed it, was dreadfully alarmed and begged
him not to bolt his food like that. "Pip, old chap, you'll do yourself a
mischief--it'll stick somewhere, you can't have chewed it, Pip. You
know, Pip, you and me is always friends and I'd be the last one to tell
upon you any time, but such a--such a most uncommon bolt as that."

"Been bolting his food, has he?" cried Mrs. Joe.

"You know, old chap," said Joe. "I bolted myself when I was your
age--frequent--and as a boy I've been among a many bolters; but I never
see your bolting equal yet, Pip, and it's a mercy you ain't bolted
dead."

Mrs. Joe made a dive at Pip, fished him up by the hair, saying, "You
come along and be dosed."

It was Christmas eve, and Pip had to stir the pudding from seven to
eight, and found the bread and butter dreadfully in his way. At last he
slipped out and put it away in his little bedroom.

Poor Pip passed a wretched night, thinking of the dreadful promise he
had made, and as soon as it was beginning to get light outside he got up
and crept down-stairs, fancying that every board creaked out "Stop
thief!" and "Get up, Mrs. Joe!"

As quickly as he could, he took some bread, some rind of cheese, about
half a jar of mince-meat, which he tied up in a handkerchief, with the
slice of bread and butter, some brandy from a stone bottle, a meat-bone
with very little on it, and a pork-pipe, which he found on an upper
shelf. Then he got a file from among Joe's tools, and ran for the
marshes.

It was a very misty morning,