I felt that I must have something in reserve for my dreadful acquaintance, and his ally the still more dreadful young man. I knew Mrs. Joe's housekeeping to be of the strictest kind, and that my larcenous researches might find nothing available in the safe. Therefore I resolved to put my hunk of bread-and-butter down the leg of my trousers.
The effort of resolution necessary to the achievement of this purpose, I found to be quite awful. It was as if I had to make up my mind to leap from the top of a high house, or plunge into a great depth of water. And it was made the more difficult by the unconscious Joe. In our already-mentioned freemasonry as fellow-sufferers, and in his good-natured companionship with me, it was our evening habit to compare the way we bit through out slices, by silently holding them up to each other's admiration now and then - which stimulated us to new exertions. To-night, Joe several times invited me, by the display of his fast-diminishing slice, to enter upon our usual friendly competition; but he found me, each time, with my yellow mug of tea on one knee, and my untouched bread-and-butter on the other.
At last, I desperately considered that the thing I contemplated must be done, and that it had best be done in the least improbable manner consistent with the circumstances. I took advantage of a moment when Joe had just looked at me, and got my bread-and-butter down my leg.
Joe was evidently made uncomfortable by what he supposed to be my loss of appetite, and took a thoughtful bite out of his slice, which he didn't seem to enjoy. He turned it about in his mouth much longer than usual, pondering over it a good deal, and after all gulped it down like a pill.
He was about to take another bite, and had just got his head on one side for a good purchase on it, when his eye fell on me, and he saw that my bread-and-butter was gone.
The wonder and consternation with which Joe stopped on the threshold of his bite and stared at me, were too evident to escape my sister's observation.
`What's the matter now?' said she, smartly, as she put down her cup.
`I say, you know!' muttered Joe, shaking his head at me in very serious remonstrance. `Pip, old chap! You'll do yourself a 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 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, of the man with the iron on his leg who had sworn me to secrecy, declaring that he couldn't and wouldn't starve until to-morrow, but must be fed now. At other times, I thought, What if the young man who was with so much difficulty restrained from imbruing his hands in me, should yield to a constitutional impatience, or should mistake the time, and should think himself accredited to my heart and liver to-night, instead of to-morrow!If ever anybody's hair stood on end with terror, mine must have done so then. But, perhaps, nobody's ever did?
