birthdays,
on each of which I paid another visit to Miss Havisham.

On a Saturday night, in the fourth year of my apprenticeship to Joe, he
and I sat by a fire at the inn--the Three Jolly Bargemen, with a group of
men. One of them was a strange gentleman who entered into the discussion
on hand with zest, and then, rising, stood before the fire. "From
information I have received," said he, looking round, "I have reason to
believe there is a blacksmith among you, by name Joseph Gargery. Which is
the man?"

"Here is the man," said Joe.

The gentleman beckoned him out of his place, and said: "You have an
apprentice called Pip. Is he here?"

To this I responded in the affirmative. The stranger did not recognise me,
but I recognised him as the gentleman I had met on the stairs on my second
visit to Miss Havisham. I had known him from the moment I had first been
confronted with his bushy eyebrows and black eyes.

"I wish to have a private conference with you both," he said. "Perhaps we
had better go to your house to have it."

So, in a wondering silence, we walked away with him towards home, and when
we got there Joe let us in by the front door, and our conference was held
in the state parlour.

The stranger proceeded to tell us that he was a lawyer, Jaggers by name,
and that he was the bearer of an offer to Joe, which was, that he should
cancel my indentures, at my request, and for my good. He went on to say
that his communication was to the effect that I had Great Expectations.
Joe and I gasped and looked at one another as Mr. Jaggers continued:

"I am instructed to tell Pip that he will come into a handsome property,
and that it is the desire of the present owner of that property that he be
at once removed from here, and be brought up as befits a young gentleman
of Great Expectations."

My dream was out! My wild fancy was realised; Miss Havisham was going to
make my fortune on a grand scale.

I listened breathlessly while Mr. Jaggers added that my benefactor wished
me to keep always the name of Pip, and also that the name of the
benefactor was to remain a secret until such time as the person chose to
reveal it. After stating these conditions, Mr. Jaggers paused, and asked
if I had any objections to complying with them, to which I stammered that
I had not, and Mr. Jaggers continued that he had been made my guardian,
that he would provide me with a sum of money ample for my education and
maintenance, and that he