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mischief. It'll stick somewhere. You can't have chawed it, Pip."

"What's the matter now?" repeated my sister, more sharply than
before.

"If you can cough any trifle on it up, Pip, I'd recommend you to do
it," said Joe, all aghast. "Manners is manners, but still your
elth's your elth."

By this time, my sister was quite desperate, so she pounced on Joe,
and, taking him by the two whiskers, knocked his head for a little
while against the wall behind him: while I sat in the corner,
looking guiltily on.

"Now, perhaps you'll mention what's the matter," said my sister,
out of breath, "you staring great stuck pig."

Joe looked at her in a helpless way; then took a helpless bite, and
looked at me again.

"You know, Pip," said Joe, solemnly, with his last bite in his
cheek and speaking in a confidential voice, as if we two were quite
alone, "you and me is always friends, and I'd be the last to tell
upon you, any time. But such a--" he moved his chair and looked
about the floor between us, and then again at me - "such a most
oncommon Bolt as that!"

"Been bolting his food, has he?" cried my sister.

"You know, old chap," said Joe, looking at me, and not at Mrs. Joe,
with his bite still in his cheek, "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."

My sister made a dive at me, and fished me up by the hair: saying
nothing more than the awful words, "You come along and be dosed."

Some medical beast had revived Tar-water in those days as a fine
medicine, and Mrs. Joe always kept a supply of it in the cupboard;
having a belief in its virtues correspondent to its nastiness. At
the best of times, so much of this elixir was administered to me as
a choice restorative, that I was conscious of going about, smelling
like a new fence. On this particular evening the urgency of my case
demanded a pint of this mixture, which was poured down my throat,
for my greater comfort, while Mrs. Joe held my head under her arm,
as a boot would be held in a boot-jack. Joe got off with half a
pint; but was made to swallow that (much to his disturbance, as he
sat slowly munching and meditating before the fire), "because he had
had a turn." Judging from myself, I should say he certainly had a
turn afterwards, if he had had none before.

Conscience is a dreadful thing when it accuses man or boy; but
when, in the case of a boy, that secret burden co-operates with
another secret burden down the leg of his trousers, it is (as I can
testify) a great punishment. The guilty knowledge that I was going
to rob Mrs. Joe - I never thought I was going to rob Joe, for I
never thought of any of the housekeeping property as his - united
to the necessity of always keeping one hand on my bread-and-butter
as I sat, or when I was ordered about the kitchen on any small
errand, almost drove me out of my mind. Then, as the marsh winds
made the fire glow and flare, I thought I heard the voice outside,

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